According to a survey released on Tuesday by the IT industry association Bitkom, most companies in Germany ensure that decommissioned IT equipment is either reused or disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner.
Of the 603 German firms with at least 20 employees that were interviewed by phone from the 39th to the 44th week of 2025, 74 percent stated that they dispose of functional, retired devices in a proper way. One third (33 percent) donate old equipment to charitable organisations such as school initiatives, youth projects or support programmes for those in need. Employees are also considered: 18 percent give retired devices to employees for free, while 23 percent sell them to staff at a discount.
Other practices include returning devices to the leasing provider (28 percent) and keeping them in storage for possible future use (15 percent). For professional second‑hand use, 12 percent sell devices to specialised refurbishment services and 4 percent sell them to random third parties. Only 1 percent of companies dispose of functional old devices with regular commercial waste.
These findings are based on the Bitkom Research survey, which collected telephone responses from 603 companies across Germany.
