TL;DR — Key Takeaways>
- Australia generated 588,000 tonnes of e-waste in 2023 — the equivalent weight of more than 11 Sydney Harbour Bridges' worth of obsolete electronics, and the figure keeps climbing.
- The global ITAD market hit US$25 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach US$54.5 billion by 2030 at 14% CAGR — Australia is part of a structural growth trend, not a niche corner.
- Of every 100 IT devices coming off corporate leases in Australia, fewer than 35 currently get refurbished into a second working life — the rest go to recycling, stockpiles, or landfill.
- Asset reuse delivers up to 20× the greenhouse-gas avoidance of recycling — Gartner's 2026 finding, now driving Scope 3 emissions reporting at the executive level globally.
- In our Melbourne facility, we processed approximately 14,500+ devices in 2025, retaining over 3,000 tonnes of embodied CO2 in active service rather than letting that carbon investment go to landfill.
- Refurbished laptop resale values rose 37% from 2023 to 2024 — a market-level signal that refurbished is shifting from "depreciating asset" to strategic supply, particularly as AI compute demand strains global chip supply.
By Jeff Fujii — Director, Reboot IT (operating in refurbished IT since 2001) Last updated: 2 May 2026
Global ITAD market growth 2024–2030. Source: Gartner 2026 ITAD market analysis, via Blancco March 2026 ITAD & Processor User Forum.
Table of Contents
1. Why this index exists 2. How big is Australia's e-waste problem in 2026? 3. What does the global ITAD market look like — and where does Australia fit? 4. How much IT actually gets refurbished — and how much should? 5. What does refurbishment really save in carbon terms? 6. What's the dollar cost of choosing new over refurbished? 7. Why are refurbished resale values rising in 2024–2025? 8. Why Australia lags the EU repairability framework 9. How does the ATO instant asset write-off interact with refurbished IT? 10. What hardware actually comes off Australian corporate leases? 11. What does NIST 800-88 Rev 2 (2025) change for IT asset disposal? 12. When refurbished is the wrong choice 13. Frequently asked questions
Why this index exists
Generic "e-waste statistics" articles already exist, mostly written from US or European data. None give Australian businesses a clear picture of how the refurbishment channel specifically interacts with the broader e-waste problem — how much IT actually gets refurbished here, what it saves in dollars and carbon, where the gaps sit, and how Australia fits into the global IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) market that's now growing at 14% CAGR.
This index changes that. It combines Australian Bureau of Statistics waste-account data, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) e-waste reporting, peer-reviewed lifecycle research, global ITAD market data from Gartner, Sims Lifecycle Services FY24 financial reporting, IDC's 2024 refurbishment market analysis, and 25 years of operational data from our Melbourne refurbishment facility.
I started Reboot IT in 2001 — before "refurbished IT" was a recognised commercial category in Australia. What we see daily is the gap between what gets thrown away and what could still be in productive use for another three to five years. This index puts numbers on that gap, in both Australian and global context.
How big is Australia's e-waste problem in 2026?
The headline figure: Australia generated approximately 588,000 tonnes of e-waste in 2023, according to the most recent ABS Waste Account (Cat. 4602.0.55.005). To put that in context, that's roughly 23 kilograms per Australian per year — among the highest per-capita e-waste generation rates in the world.
The trajectory is worse than the headline. Over the decade 2013–2023, Australian e-waste generation grew approximately 3% per year compounded — outpacing GDP, population, and household consumption growth. The drivers: shorter device replacement cycles (corporate fleets typically refresh every 36 months); declining repairability of consumer devices; and the post-pandemic "second screen" effect, where households accumulated more devices that all reach end-of-life at similar times.
Australia generated 588,000 tonnes of e-waste in 2023 — 38% growth in a decade. Source: ABS Waste Account, Australia (Cat. 4602.0.55.005, 2024).
The recovery picture is improving slowly. The National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme, administered by DCCEEW, recovered approximately 53,000 tonnes of computer and television waste in 2022–23 — about 9% of total e-waste by weight. The remaining 91% goes to general recycling streams (some recoverable, much not), landfill, or stockpiles in households and warehouses.
What the ABS data doesn't break out clearly: the refurbishment vs recycling distinction. Recycling reclaims raw materials. Refurbishment keeps the whole device working for another 3–5 years. They are very different interventions with very different carbon and economic outcomes. Refurbishment is the missing layer in most of Australia's e-waste reporting.
What does the global ITAD market look like — and where does Australia fit?
Australia's refurbishment industry doesn't operate in isolation. We're part of a global IT Asset Disposition market that's grown rapidly in the last three years and is now firmly in the procurement-mainstream conversation.
According to Gartner's 2026 ITAD market analysis (referenced in Blancco's March 2026 Industry Forum), the global ITAD market reached US$25 billion in 2024 and is forecast to grow to US$54.5 billion by 2030 at 14% CAGR. That's faster than enterprise IT spending overall and faster than the cloud services market — a strong signal that ITAD is shifting from being treated as a back-office disposal cost to being treated as a strategic procurement function.
Global ITAD market (Gartner) growing 14% CAGR; refurbishment-specific market (IDC) growing 5.6% CAGR. Both 2024–2030.
Within ITAD, the global refurbishment-specific segment is also substantial. IDC's 2024 Global Device Refurbishment Market Tracker estimated the global refurbished device market at US$80 billion in 2024, projecting growth to approximately US$96 billion by 2028 (around 5.6% CAGR). For context, that's around 3% of the size of the new-device market — meaningful, growing, and now structurally part of how enterprise IT is supplied.
Three macro drivers are pushing the growth:
1. Chip constraint from AI compute demand. Global semiconductor supply is increasingly absorbed by AI infrastructure (data centres training and serving large models). Refurbished business hardware — laptops, desktops, monitors with already-existing CPUs and chips — has become a strategic supply channel for organisations that need IT capacity but can't get the new equivalent in reasonable lead times. This was barely a factor pre-2023; it's now central to procurement conversations.
2. Scope 3 emissions reporting at executive level. Gartner's 2026 finding is unambiguous: "asset reuse delivers up to 20× the GHG avoidance of recycling." That number is now in the C-suite vocabulary because Scope 3 (indirect emissions including supply-chain procurement) is increasingly regulated and disclosed. CIOs and CFOs are being asked to demonstrate emissions reduction, and refurbishment is the largest single lever in IT-sector Scope 3 reduction.
3. Resale values are rising, not falling. Sims Lifecycle Services reported FY24 sales revenue of A$349.7 million, up 7.5% on FY23 — driven by refurbishment volumes that have surged in the last 18 months. Cascade Asset Management's 2023–2024 sustainability report (a major US ITAD operator) shows similar patterns: repurposed device volumes up 60% in 2024, and refurbished laptop resale values up 37% from 2023 to 2024. The market is bidding up refurbished assets, which is the opposite of what most procurement officers assume.
Australia is part of this trend, not separate from it. The global pull on chip supply directly affects Australian refurbished pricing; Scope 3 reporting requirements affect Australian listed companies' procurement frameworks; and Australian ITAD operators participate in the same global value chain.
How much IT actually gets refurbished — and how much should?
Here's where the data gets thinner — and where the operator perspective matters.
In our Melbourne facility, we processed approximately 14,500+ devices in 2025 across laptops, desktops, monitors, phones, tablets, and networking equipment. That's a mid-sized AU refurbisher's annual throughput. The total Australian refurbishment industry processes substantially more — but no public dataset tracks the full figure.
Estimating from corporate lease cycle volumes (closest publicly accessible references are CBRE's Australian IT asset finance reporting and Sims Lifecycle Services' AU operational disclosure), we estimate approximately 1.2 million enterprise IT devices come off Australian corporate leases each year (Reboot IT industry estimate; no public dataset measures this precisely). Of those:
- Approximately 35% get refurbished into a second working life by Microsoft Authorised Refurbishers (MAR) and equivalent commercial refurbishment operations
- Approximately 30% are recycled for materials recovery (NTCRS or equivalent)
- Approximately 20% go to e-waste stockpiles (warehouses, charities, schools — often functional but not reaching new buyers)
- Approximately 15% end up in landfill or unaccounted disposal
Of every 100 IT devices coming off Australian corporate leases, only 35 are refurbished into a second working life.
Of the 35% that gets refurbished, the bulk is laptops (highest reuse value), then monitors, then desktops. Tablets and phones have shorter refurbishment economics because their lifecycles are aligned to consumer rather than enterprise patterns.
What's striking, from the floor of a refurbishment facility: most devices we reject for refurbishment fail on cosmetics, not function. A 4-year-old ThinkPad with 87% battery health, a fully working keyboard, and a chassis with one visible scratch will go to recycling rather than refurbishment under many supplier standards — because the cosmetic grading determines saleability rather than the underlying capability of the hardware. That's a system design issue Australia hasn't seriously confronted.
Globally, the refurbishment-to-recycling ratio is tightening. Gartner's data shows the repurposed-vs-recycled volume ratio has shifted approximately 60% in 2024 in favour of repurposing. As Scope 3 reporting matures and resale values rise, recycling will increasingly be the route of last resort rather than the default.
What does refurbishment really save in carbon terms?
The carbon math on refurbishment is one of the most under-reported numbers in Australian sustainability reporting.
Manufacturing a new business laptop produces approximately 330 kg of CO2 equivalent, according to peer-reviewed lifecycle assessment data (Wernet et al., 2016, International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment). Manufacturing a new desktop is higher — closer to 600 kg. Monitors land at approximately 250 kg depending on size. Smartphones, despite being smaller, run approximately 70 kg per unit due to the manufacturing intensity of compact electronics.
Refurbishing one laptop avoids 320 kg of CO2 — equivalent to driving Melbourne to Adelaide. The hardware was already made.
Refurbishment keeps all of that already-spent carbon "investment" working. Refurbishing a single laptop — testing, replacing battery if needed, software wipe, repackaging — adds approximately 10 kg of additional CO2 to the device's lifetime emissions. The refurbishment intervention is approximately 3% of the manufacturing carbon cost.
Gartner's framing — referenced earlier — puts the same arithmetic in a different unit: asset reuse delivers up to 20× the greenhouse-gas avoidance of recycling. That is, if you have a working device and the alternatives are (a) refurbish it and put it back into service, or (b) recycle it for materials recovery, refurbishing avoids 20 times more emissions. Recycling reclaims some materials (mostly metals); manufacturing a replacement still requires the full ~330 kg CO2 emissions cycle. Refurbishment avoids almost all of that.
Apply the ratio to volumes: of the ~14,500 devices we processed in 2025, the mix-weighted average embodied CO2 per device sits around 220 kg. That's approximately 3,000+ tonnes of embodied CO2 retained in active service — the equivalent of taking around 650 cars off the road for a year, in CO2 terms.
Scale to the Australian refurbishment industry as a whole: if approximately 420,000 devices per year (35% of 1.2 million ex-lease devices) are refurbished, the embodied carbon retention is approximately 92,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year — roughly the annual emissions of 20,000 Australian households.
This is carbon that would otherwise need to be emitted again to manufacture replacement hardware. Refurbishment is the single largest operational lever in IT-sector sustainability that Australian businesses can pull, and most aren't pulling it.
What's the dollar cost of choosing new over refurbished?
The economics are blunter than the carbon argument.
Based on Reboot IT internal pricing data sampled across the laptop, desktop, and monitor categories: a representative refurbished business laptop running an Intel i5 of 2-3 generations old, with 16 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD, costs approximately 40–55% of the equivalent-spec new device at retail. For desktops and monitors, the saving is similar — roughly 50% off.
Apply that to a typical SMB IT refresh: an organisation replacing 30 fleet laptops, 30 monitors, and 5 desktops at new-buy pricing will spend approximately $80,000 ex-GST. The same fleet at refurbished spec costs approximately $40,000–$45,000 ex-GST — a saving of around $35,000 to $40,000 ex-GST per refresh cycle.
A typical 30-laptop SMB refresh: $80,000 new vs $42,500 refurbished. $37,500 saved per cycle. Both qualify for ATO instant asset write-off.
Over a 3-year ownership window, the saving compounds. Refurbished devices deliver approximately the same useful life as new (typically 3–5 years before becoming a refurbishment candidate themselves), so the ownership cost per year drops by roughly half. For a 30-person business, that's approximately $12,000 to $13,000 ex-GST per year in IT capital savings — money that can fund growth, salaries, or simply reduce overhead.
The qualifier: this saving assumes professional refurbishment — Microsoft Authorised Refurbisher status, transparent grading, real warranty, post-sale support. The savings disappear if you buy from a back-shed seller whose "refurbished" laptop fails three months in. Supplier vetting matters; we'll cover what to look for in the hardware section below.
Why are refurbished resale values rising in 2024–2025?
This is one of the most interesting recent shifts in the market, and it changes how IT capital should be thought about.
Cascade Asset Management's 2023–2024 sustainability and operations reporting documented refurbished laptop resale values up 37% from 2023 to 2024. Sims Lifecycle Services' FY24 financial report confirmed similar trends in volumes (FY24 sales revenue of A$349.7 million, up 7.5% YoY) and pricing power. IDC's 2024 tracker showed similar pricing strength globally.
Refurbished laptop resale values rose 37% from 2023 to 2024 — driven by AI chip constraint and Scope 3 procurement shifts.
Why is this happening? Three factors converging:
1. AI compute is consuming chip supply. Hyperscalers (AWS, Google, Microsoft, Meta) and AI-first companies are absorbing global semiconductor manufacturing capacity. New CPU, GPU, and memory module supply for business endpoints is constrained. Refurbished hardware — already-manufactured and ready to ship — has become a strategic supply for organisations that need capacity now, not in 8–12 months.
2. Scope 3 reporting is reshaping procurement. Australian listed entities under Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards (AASB S2) now report on indirect emissions including supply-chain procurement. Refurbished IT directly reduces Scope 3. Procurement teams have shifted from "lowest unit cost" to "unit cost weighted by emissions and disclosure". Refurbished wins on both dimensions for most use cases.
3. The post-pandemic refresh wave is over. A lot of new hardware was bought 2020–2022 (work-from-home wave). That hardware is now coming off lease as 2023–2025 inventory. Supply is increasing. But demand for that supply is also increasing because of factors 1 and 2 — pulling resale values up rather than down.
The implication for businesses: the calculation "refurbished is cheaper but the saving will erode over time" is now backwards. Refurbished pricing is firming, not eroding, on the underlying global supply-demand dynamics. The right move is to lock in refurbished suppliers while supply is still good and pricing hasn't fully caught up to the demand curve.
Why Australia lags the EU repairability framework
This is where Australia is genuinely behind, and where Reboot IT operators see the gap most clearly day-to-day.
The European Union introduced a repairability index starting in 2021, scoring electronics on disassembly complexity, parts availability, software support duration, and repair documentation. France made the score visible at point of sale, requiring manufacturers to display it. The index has measurably influenced design decisions — manufacturers redesigning models to score better — and given consumers and procurement teams a comparable metric.
EU mandates repairability scoring across 5 criteria; Australia has none — pushing manufacturers to design for refurbishment in EU markets but not for AU.
Australia has no equivalent framework. Our consumer-protection approach via the Australian Consumer Law covers warranty rights and "acceptable quality" standards, but doesn't directly address repairability or product longevity. The result: manufacturers face less pressure to design for refurbishment, parts availability for older corporate models drops faster than in Europe, and the refurbishment economics are tighter than they could be.
What we see in practice: a 5-year-old Dell Latitude with documented service manuals and accessible parts (because it had to score well on the EU index) is straightforward to refurbish. A consumer-class laptop from the same year, designed primarily for the Australian and US markets without EU repairability pressure, often has glued batteries, soldered storage, and proprietary parts — making it economic to refurbish only if cosmetic condition is excellent.
The economics of repairability sit upstream of refurbishment volumes. Without repairability pressure on manufacturers, the percentage of ex-lease devices that can be economically refurbished stays lower than it would be otherwise. Australia gains by importing well-designed corporate hardware (which benefits indirectly from EU repairability requirements) but doesn't gain from consumer-electronics improvements that haven't been forced by domestic regulation.
A Productivity Commission inquiry into Right to Repair in 2021 recommended legislative changes including parts availability mandates and repair information disclosure. Implementation has been partial. The 2026 reform agenda is still incomplete.
How does the ATO instant asset write-off interact with refurbished IT?
This is the section most procurement officers haven't modelled, and where the math meaningfully favours refurbishment.
The ATO instant asset write-off threshold for the 2025–26 financial year sits at $20,000 per asset for small businesses (turnover under $10 million). Each individual asset under that threshold can be written off in full in the year of purchase rather than depreciated over its expected useful life.
Apply this to two scenarios:
Scenario A — Buying new: A new business laptop at $2,400 ex-GST sits well under the $20,000 threshold and can be fully written off in year 1. Tax treatment is favourable. But cash outlay is high.
Scenario B — Buying refurbished: An equivalent-spec refurbished laptop at approximately $1,000 ex-GST also qualifies for full year-1 write-off. Tax treatment is identical to new. Cash outlay is roughly half. The tax shield is therefore the same in proportional terms, and the after-tax cost difference between refurbished and new is roughly the pre-tax saving — approximately $1,400 ex-GST per device.
Across a 30-laptop fleet refresh: approximately $42,000 ex-GST in cash retained, identical tax treatment, and the same instant write-off benefit. Many SMB owners assume refurbished forfeits some tax treatment — it doesn't. The instant asset write-off is asset-cost-blind below the threshold; refurbished and new are treated identically.
Both new ($2,400) and refurbished ($1,000) laptops qualify for full year-1 write-off. Tax treatment identical; cash retained: $1,400 per device.
The 2026 reform discussion includes proposals to lift the threshold to $30,000 for businesses under $50 million turnover. Whichever way that lands, refurbished IT remains fully eligible. There is no tax-treatment penalty for buying refurbished — only the cash and carbon advantages.
This is one of the clearest whitespace insights in the index: no Australian refurbishment retailer's content I'm aware of has systematically modelled the ATO interaction. It's a procurement-officer conversation that should happen routinely and currently doesn't.
What hardware actually comes off Australian corporate leases?
In our Melbourne facility, the inbound mix is consistent year over year. Of every 100 devices arriving from Australian corporate decommissions:
- Approximately 45–55 are business laptops — predominantly Lenovo ThinkPad, Dell Latitude, and HP EliteBook lines (the "big three" enterprise SKUs)
- Approximately 15–20 are desktops — mostly Dell OptiPlex, HP ProDesk/EliteDesk small-form-factor and tower units
- Approximately 15–20 are monitors — predominantly 22"-27" panels from Dell, HP, BenQ, ViewSonic
- Approximately 5–10 are smartphones and tablets — iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, Microsoft Surface
- The remainder is networking, peripherals, and miscellaneous
A specific operational data point worth flagging: globally, approximately 15% of all incoming corporate-fleet assets arrive Microsoft Autopilot-locked (per Blancco's 2026 ITAD operational data). Autopilot is Microsoft's enterprise device-enrolment system; when devices reach refurbishers without proper de-enrolment, they need a specific procedural unlock before they can be wiped and reimaged. This is a 2024–2026-era operational reality that didn't exist a few years ago — it adds processing time and signals why MAR-program refurbishers (with the right tooling and Microsoft relationships) deliver more reliable outcomes than back-shed sellers.
The implication for buyers: the bulk of refurbished business inventory in Australia is not "salvaged" or "fixed" hardware — it's professionally decommissioned corporate fleet kit, originally specced higher than what most consumers buy new, run for 24–36 months in office environments, then released. The hardware was top-tier when new. The price is now half.
Supplier vetting should focus on three signals: MAR program membership (immediate trust signal — Microsoft sets and enforces standards); transparent grading (the supplier publishes what each grade means and what's been remediated); and real warranty (12 months minimum is now standard for serious refurbishers; anything less is a concern).
What does NIST 800-88 Rev 2 (2025) change for IT asset disposal?
For business IT buyers, this is increasingly the standard your refurbisher should be meeting.
In September 2025, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published NIST Special Publication 800-88 Revision 2 — the first major update since 2014. NIST 800-88 is the global benchmark for media sanitisation (data wiping for disposed devices). The revision matters because it brings the standard up to date for modern storage:
- Coverage extended from HDDs and early SSDs to NVMe drives, modern flash storage, mobile devices, and cloud-stored data
- External standards alignment — NIST 800-88 Rev 2 explicitly references IEEE 2883:2022 for implementation, aligning the US and international approaches
- Outcome-based verification rather than prescribing exact techniques — focus shifts to proving that data was sanitised, not just that a wipe procedure ran
- Stronger audit trail expectations — certificates of sanitisation and verification logs are now structurally required, not optional
The 4 stages of NIST 800-88 Rev 2 data sanitisation. Ask your refurbisher for audit logs at each stage.
When refurbished is the wrong choice
We'd rather lose a sale than ship a unit we'd recommend against, so here's the honest answer.
Refurbished IT is the wrong choice in these specific scenarios:
1. Bleeding-edge GPU workloads. If you're doing 4K video editing, 3D rendering, or serious machine learning training, you need the latest-generation NVIDIA RTX or equivalent. That hardware hasn't come off corporate leases yet — it's still in production use with the original buyer. For these workloads, buy new. We'd say the same. Reference: the Australian Computer Society's 2024 GPU procurement guidance discusses this directly.
2. Devices needing five-plus years of remaining battery life with no opportunity for replacement. A typical refurbished laptop battery delivers 1–3 years of typical-use life before needing replacement. If your use case (e.g. embedded industrial deployment, remote sensor work) requires multi-year unattended operation without battery service, factor in either battery replacement cycles or buy new. For office environments, this concern is overblown — batteries are routine consumables.
3. Regulated procurement contexts that require new-only supply. Some defence, healthcare, and government tender contracts mandate new equipment for security, compliance, or chain-of-custody reasons. Don't try to win those tenders with refurbished — the procurement framework prohibits it. Refurbished is for environments where that constraint doesn't apply.
4. Personal sentimental use cases. If you specifically want the unboxing experience or the latest model for personal reasons, that's a legitimate preference. We sell refurbished because the economics and sustainability case is strong; we don't argue refurbished is emotionally equivalent to new. Buy what you want for personal use.
5. Where total cost of repair exceeds replacement cost. A device that needs three components replaced isn't a refurbishment candidate — it's a parts donor. Honest refurbishers triage at intake and don't sell devices where the remediation cost approaches new-purchase cost. If a supplier's pricing seems too good for the spec, that's the most likely explanation.
The pattern across all five: refurbished is the default rational choice for general business IT procurement, with specific exceptions where new is genuinely the right call. Acknowledging the exceptions strengthens rather than weakens the refurbishment case.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between refurbished and second-hand IT?
Refurbished IT has been professionally tested, repaired where needed, software-wiped to factory state (NIST 800-88 Rev 2 standard from 2025 onwards), and quality-graded against a documented standard — usually with warranty. Second-hand is sold as-is by the previous owner, with no remediation guarantee. Microsoft's MAR program sets the gold-standard refurbishment definition in Australia.
How long does a refurbished business laptop last?
Typically 3–5 years of additional useful life beyond the original corporate lease cycle. The original corporate user got 24–36 months out of it; a buyer of professionally refurbished kit can reasonably expect another 3 years minimum, often 5 years for solid SKUs (ThinkPad T-series, EliteBook 800-series, Latitude 7000-series). Ours come with 12-month warranty as standard.
Is refurbished IT covered by Australian Consumer Law?
Yes. ACL section 54 (acceptable quality) applies to refurbished goods just as it does to new. The threshold of "acceptable quality" is set against what a reasonable buyer would expect given the description and price — so a refurbished laptop sold as Grade B with cosmetic wear is judged against that representation, not against new-buy expectations. Major-failure remedies (refund, replacement, repair) all apply.
What carbon savings does refurbished actually deliver compared to new?
Approximately 97% of manufacturing-stage CO2 is avoided by refurbishing rather than replacing, based on the standard 330 kg manufacturing CO2 of a typical business laptop versus approximately 10 kg added during refurbishment. Gartner frames the same arithmetic as "asset reuse delivers up to 20× the GHG avoidance of recycling". For a 30-device fleet refresh, that's approximately 9,600 kg of CO2 avoided versus buying new — equivalent to driving the same fleet from Melbourne to Adelaide and back roughly 12 times.
Can I claim instant asset write-off on refurbished IT?
Yes. The ATO instant asset write-off is asset-cost-based, not asset-condition-based — refurbished devices under the threshold qualify for full year-one write-off identically to new. Tax treatment is the same; only the cash outlay is lower.
How big is the global refurbishment market in 2026?
Approximately US$80 billion in 2024, projected to reach US$96 billion by 2028 (5.6% CAGR), per IDC's 2024 Global Device Refurbishment Market Tracker. The broader ITAD market — which includes refurbishment plus recycling, data sanitisation, and adjacent services — was approximately US$25 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach US$54.5 billion by 2030 at 14% CAGR (Gartner).
Why are refurbished prices firming rather than falling?
Three converging factors: AI compute demand is absorbing global chip supply, making refurbished hardware a strategic alternative; Scope 3 emissions reporting is shifting procurement toward refurbished; and corporate decommissioning patterns from the 2020–2022 work-from-home wave are now flowing into refurbishment supply just as demand is rising. Sims Lifecycle Services reported A$349.7 million FY24 sales revenue (up 7.5%); Cascade reported repurposed volumes up 60% in 2024 and laptop resale values up 37%.
Is refurbished hardware the same reliability as new?
For modern professionally-refurbished business hardware (MAR program suppliers), failure rates in the 12 months post-purchase are comparable to new — within 1–2 percentage points based on industry data. The key qualifier is "professionally refurbished" — non-MAR or back-shed sellers vary widely. Supplier vetting matters more than refurbished-vs-new in failure-rate terms.
What's the best way to vet a refurbished IT supplier?
Three criteria: (1) MAR program membership — listed publicly on Microsoft's partner directory; (2) transparent grading and warranty — they publish what each grade means and offer 12-month warranty minimum; (3) named operational presence — physical refurbishment facility, named operators, traceable business history. Ask what data sanitisation standard they use — the answer should reference NIST 800-88 Rev 2 (2025) with audit logs available. We've operated since 2001, run our own Melbourne refurbishment facility, and are a long-standing MAR participant. Apply the same checks to any supplier.
About the author
Jeff Fujii is the Director of Reboot IT, founded in 2001. Reboot IT is one of Australia's longest-running refurbished IT specialists, operating a Melbourne refurbishment facility and supplying business IT to SMB and enterprise buyers across Australia. Jeff has been operating in this market since before "refurbished IT" was a recognised commercial category, and has watched the sustainability case shift from fringe to mainstream over a 25-year operating window. Connect on LinkedIn.
Related Reboot IT resources
- Refurbished business laptops range — current inventory of Lenovo ThinkPad, Dell Latitude, HP EliteBook ex-corporate stock with 12-month warranty
- Refurbished desktops and small-form-factor PCs — Dell OptiPlex, HP ProDesk and EliteDesk, all professionally refurbished
- Refurbished business monitors — 22-27 inch panels from Dell, HP, BenQ, ViewSonic
- Refurbished iPads and tablets — Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy tablet refurbishment range
- Refurbished servers and networking — enterprise networking and server-class hardware
- About Reboot IT — 25 years' refurbishment experience — our story, MAR program participation, and Melbourne facility
References
[1] Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2024). Waste Account, Australia, Experimental Estimates. ABS Cat. 4602.0.55.005. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/environment/environmental-management/waste-account-australia-experimental-estimates
[2] Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. (2024). National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme — annual outcomes report. https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/protection/waste/product-stewardship
[3] Wernet, G., Bauer, C., Steubing, B., Reinhard, J., Moreno-Ruiz, E., Weidema, B. (2016). The ecoinvent database version 3 (part I): overview and methodology. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 21(9), 1218-1230. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-016-1087-8
[4] Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Consumer rights and guarantees. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-services/consumer-guarantees
[5] Australian Taxation Office. Instant asset write-off for eligible businesses. https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/income-deductions-and-concessions/depreciation-and-capital-expenses-and-allowances/simpler-depreciation-for-small-business/instant-asset-write-off
[6] Productivity Commission. (2021). Right to Repair — final report. https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/repair
[7] European Commission. Ecodesign Directive — repairability index. https://www.ecodesign-directive.eu/
[8] Microsoft. Microsoft Authorised Refurbisher (MAR) program — Australia. https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/refurbishedpcs
[9] Australian Computer Society. (2024). Procurement and sustainability guidance. https://www.acs.org.au/
[10] National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2025). NIST Special Publication 800-88 Revision 2 — Guidelines for Media Sanitization. September 2025. https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/88/r2/final
[11] IEEE Standards Association. (2022). IEEE 2883-2022 — Standard for Sanitizing Storage. https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/2883/10277/
[12] Sims Limited. (2024). Sims Lifecycle Services FY24 sales revenue: A$349.7 million, up 7.5% YoY. Annual Report and Appendix 4E. ASX:SGM. https://www.simsltd.com/investors/reports/
[13] IDC. (2024). Global Device Refurbishment Market Tracker 2024. Estimated global refurbished market US$80 billion in 2024, projected US$96 billion by 2028 (5.6% CAGR). https://www.idc.com/research/forecasts.jsp
[14] Cascade Asset Management. (2024). 2023–2024 Sustainability and Operations Report. Repurposed volumes up 60% in 2024; refurbished laptop resale values up 37% (2023→2024). https://cascade-assets.com/cascade-annual-report/
[15] Gartner. (2026). ITAD market analysis — Global ITAD market US$25B (2024), forecast US$54.5B by 2030 at 14% CAGR; asset reuse delivers up to 20× GHG avoidance versus recycling. Referenced via Blancco March 2026 ITAD & Processor User Forum.
[16] Australian Accounting Standards Board. AASB S2 — Climate-related Disclosures. https://www.aasb.gov.au/
[17] Reboot IT internal operational data, 2025 — refurbishment volumes, pricing, and processing metrics from our Melbourne facility. Available on request.
