Drinks giant Coca-Cola has this week donated 1,750 items of used computer equipment to charity Computer Aid International for re-use in education projects in developing countries.

Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) has been working with the charity to dispose of old kit for the past two years as part of the firm’s sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes.

With Computer Aid’s help, CCE tracks the progress of its used computers and follows the projects they are used to support.

For example, the company’s old systems are helping communities in rural Ecuador where computer labs have been set up to provide IT training to schoolchildren. Another shipment has been placed with the not-for-profit Todo Chilenter programme, which helps disadvantaged schools in rural areas of Chile.

“Our partnership with Computer Aid not only provides us with a simple, cost-effective solution for disposing of our IT equipment, but it also ties in perfectly with our CSR schemes which focus on waste reduction, charitable donations and sustainability,” said Chris Grao, field IT manager at Coca-Cola Enterprises.

“Computer Aid’s decommissioning process adheres to our Blanco data-wiping requirements, and as an Authorised Approved Treatment Facility, the charity also allows us to fulfil our legal obligations under the WEEE directive. The PCs and laptops that we make redundant will often have many more years of useful life in disadvantaged communities. It’s a cause that we’re proud to support and we have communicated the good work to our staff internally as well.”

Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s recently pledged 5,000 used PCs to Computer Aid which will be used in schools and hospitals in Africa.

Computer Aid is Computing’s charity partner, and we are currently campaigning to raise money for a telemedicine project to equip rural health clinics in Africa with equipment that allows them to communicate with city doc tors to improve diagnosis, saving thousands of lives.

For more information on the telemedicine project, click here.