Summary Chia co-authored a new whitepaper on the impact of data sanitization on the circular economy, suggesting a practical solution to data security and storage reuse. Read the whitepaper here. Background Shortly after the Chia mainnet launch, hard drives worldwide were sold out, prices increased, and lead times increased. Because of the dramatic increase in demand, a few IT asset disposition (ITAD) providers wanted to know more about Chia and how drives are used for farming. When meeting with these ITADs, we learned the actual scale of how many drives were shredded per year for their customers. We pleaded to free these drives up for Chia farming, but it wasn’t up to them – it was up to their customers. In the hyperscale and enterprise space, any leak of customer data is catastrophic. The idea for Circular Drive Initiative was born – to activate collaborative work between hyperscalers, drive vendors, and ITADs, dedicated to driving secure storage reuse. Chia joined OCP to start discussing sustainability with the industry leaders in technology. The CDI workgroup decided sanitization and reuse was the first and most important topic to tackle. Addressing the issue, not the symptoms I discovered through my storage network that a new specification on media sanitization [...]