Computer giant IBM has announced it is to expand its recycling initiative to a global market, following success in the US.

The firm's Asset Recovery Solutions program will be made available to customers throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East, catering for a range of different businesses and boosting the recovery of pgms.

The scheme sees IBM pay for outmoded goods or selling them on behalf of the companies involved, with the arrangement covering IBM products as well as its competitors.

Daniel Ransdell, IBM's general manager for global asset recovery services, said that many firms were unaware of the potential to save costs or recoup money through the recycling of old machines.

"Research shows that tracking, managing, controlling - and ultimately - retiring technology assets can add up to the single largest part of IT budgets," he commented.

"Many customers do not realize that their surplus equipment can be remarketed. Nor are they fully aware of the risks of not retiring obsolete equipment properly. Now, customers in every geography in which IBM does business can benefit from a service that maximizes the value of remarketable machines and provides cost-effective and secure disposition."

As well as being cost-effective - with the recovery of precious metals from the computer hard drive such as platinum proving profitable - the initiative is also environmentally-friendly, re-using goods rather than adding them to the global 'waste mountain'.

Recently "e-waste" has become particularly prominent, with recovery experts and major IT users seeking to improve profits and change the way they dispose of machines.