There could be money hiding in your campus equipment backlog. For The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, CTL helped recover $6,379 from reusable assets while tackling nearly 22,000 pounds of retired equipment.

The project addressed a familiar problem for busy IT departments: equipment keeps aging, daily support needs keep coming, and the pile of retired technology keeps growing. Evergreen needed a practical way to move it out while protecting data and honoring the college’s commitment to sustainability.

When retired technology becomes a full time project

Evergreen had been using the Washington State Surplus program to dispose of assets. That process required staff to inventory equipment internally and schedule pickups. As staffing declined, the work became harder to sustain.

“We used to pull people aside to manage those aspects. When we lost staff, it started piling up on us,” said Brant Eddy, Purchasing & Contracts Manager at The Evergreen State College.

The backlog stretched well beyond laptops. It included desktops, hard drives, audiovisual equipment, copiers, monitors, and even old microfiche readers. Managing resale internally through sites such as eBay also took time, without delivering the results the college had hoped for.

Evergreen needed an IT asset disposition (ITAD) partner that could handle a broad mix of equipment, document the process, protect sensitive data, and identify what still had resale value.

A partner equipped for the whole backlog

The college’s health and safety team evaluated providers for scale, affordability, and the breadth of their services. CTL’s ability to handle the diverse backlog was a decisive factor.

“There were a few firms,” Eddy noted, but “CTL was the only one that had the full menu of options.”

For the initial pickup, the equipment occupied more than 1,000 square feet and filled 20 pallets. CTL coordinated removal and transportation, provided a detailed inventory of the collected IT assets, and handled data wiping, logging, and destruction audit documentation for data storage devices. Reusable assets were evaluated for buyback value.

CTL’s team also walked Evergreen through the process and shared handling best practices, giving college staff a clearer path for moving the project forward.

The value recovered helped pay for the work

Across the initial project, CTL processed nearly 22,000 pounds of legacy equipment in four truckloads. The financial results made the benefit easy to see.

The $6,379 recovered offset approximately 75% of CTL’s service fees, leaving a net project cost of $2,162. That percentage describes the fee offset for this project; it is not a measured comparison with the college’s prior internal disposal costs.

“CTL’s ITAD service was a colossal efficiency gain for us. As a smaller institution, this was an easy, low-cost way for us to get it out the door,” Eddy said.

Giving equipment a second life supported campus values

For Evergreen, the outcome mattered beyond the recovered dollars. The college wanted its equipment retirement process to reflect its environmental commitments while supporting responsible stewardship of institutional resources.

The case study describes CTL’s plan to refurbish and resell suitable equipment for business, school, and consumer use, while responsibly recycling the rest. Reuse and recycling gave Evergreen a path forward for equipment that had been sitting idle.

The partnership also brought inventory and data destruction documentation into the retirement process, helping the college address the security and accountability concerns that had accompanied its backlog.

Put your own equipment backlog to work

If your campus has a room full of retired devices, Evergreen’s experience offers a useful starting point: look at the entire project, including staff time, collection logistics, data handling, and potential resale value.

Before your next cleanout, consider these questions:

• What types of equipment are waiting for retirement, and roughly how much is there?

• Which devices contain data, and what documentation will your institution need?

• Could reusable assets help offset the cost of the project?

• What support would free your staff to focus on current campus technology needs?

Ready to see what is in your backlog? Talk with CTL about your retired equipment and ask for an ITAD project assessment. We can discuss collection, data handling, and potential value recovery based on your equipment and project requirements.