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Here in Portland Oregon you can donate it to free geek working or not. They test everything out using volunteer labor, and after 24 hours of volunteering people earn a free computer. They also can access the internet and learn about how to use a computer at the free geek lab. Find out more at http://freegeek.org/

Freegeek, in Portland, Oregon, is the best recycling option around. They recycle old monitors and equipment in an environmentally safe way. They use functional equipment to train people to work on hardware and install open source operating systems. Volunteers earn a refurbished system after volunteering 24 hours of time.

... not just Portland! There's one in Vancouver (BC), Chicago, Olympia (WA), Columbus, etc.

See this page for other startups near you.

Anyone in Portland should check out FreeGeek and consider volunteering.

All I can see initiatives like this amounting to is that Dell will whisk away the old box before anybody can think of a way to use it. Out of sight, out of mind, and nobody engages in the dangerous and subversive activity of putting a non-Microsoft OS on it.

So, start a Free Geek chapter and make a deal with the computer shops to handle their recycling for them.

Well, from my own experience, users do care about laptop parts being proprietary and expensive. They just are currently in the process of caring AFTER they go bad.

I work at http://freegeek.org/, which mostly focuses on rebuilding computers for volunteers and community use, but also sells a good amount of computer equipment. And one of the most commonly asked for items is laptop parts, which we don't often have. But lots of people who buy laptops thinking about how awesome they are, don't have the money to pay for parts and repairs. Of course, I am only in a position where people come to me with failures, but from what I have heard, it is often enough.

Anyway, I do have to say, for most people, 1000 dollars for a new laptop, or even 500 dollars, is not a trivial amount of money. I am sure that there are many people who can spend that type of money, but for a lot of people (including myself), I can't spend 1-3 months rent on a laptop. If it is because of a small problem, like the inability to change keyboards. I think eventually consumers will realize that it would be much easier if things like the keyboard and screen were made to be interchangeable.

If you look at most computer or home electronic prices, the trend has been downwards over the past twenty years. Not only downwards when adjusted for inflation, downwards when adjusted for performance, but downwards in absolute prices. I wish I had stronger memories and figures to back this up, but I do remember as a child, (I was born in 1979), people just had a wildly different attitude towards electronics. A VCR, cable television, a microwave oven, color TVs...all of these were important luxury items. This could be just a artifact of me growing up, but a color television set was on par with say, a grand piano as far as how expensive it seemed.
I do have better data for computers. I have a 1994 price guide to computers when bottom line computers, 386s cost around 1500 dollars, twice as much as a midrange new desktop would today.
All of this is stuff most readers here know. (Although I am expecting at least a few people will correct my specifics.)
What I have noticed, however, is that many people have not psychologically adjusted to this, even when they intellectually know it is the case. I have noticed this most at my work at Free Geek, where often people come in, with a Packard-Bell Pentium, and explain at some detail that the quad speed CD Drive works, if you just wiggle it around first. Or that their 14 inch monitor still works, but it might blink off every few minutes. Meanwhile, we get truckloads of P-4 systems every few days.
The point is, I think many people (often older people, but not always that much older), still have a mindset that computer and electronics are rare and valuable, instead of being the mass-produced, quickly obsolete, pieces of junk they are. And I think that many of these people are honestly confused about how valuable their product is. Of course, the RIAA people know that AOL mails out millions of CDs a month (do they still do that?), and that CDs cost "under 1 dollar to make" ( wikipedia on CD manufacturing). Of course they know these things intellectually, but I really do think they have a mindset that they are producing a rare and valuable resource, and that they aren't asking for much in that they haven't raised their prices with inflation.

Post-scarcity takes some getting used to. I consider the entertainment industries inability to come up with a more financing method that doesn't involve creating false scarcity to be one of the less harmful inabilities to adjust to a new paradigm. I consider the fact that the US political and industrial leaders really don't understand (even though they know) that the US has lost textiles 50 years ago, consumer items 40 years ago, vehicle manufacturing 30 years ago, electronic manufacturing 20 years ago and computer manufacturing 10 years ago (numbers somewhat generalized), and that all of those things are now produced overseas for a fraction of a US worker's hourly minimum wage, to be a much more dangerous symptom of the same disease.

I expect that most of the privately owned WinXP boxes that get replaced by Vista boxes will become hand-me-downs or Goodwill donations.

I am concerned about whether the corporate changeovers to Vista will dump hundreds of boxes at a time on the way too few volunteer refurbisher/recylcers like Free Geek.

These donations are tax write-offs for the businesses. Places like Free Geek strip them down, test and salvage the good components, and use those to build Linux boxes that are put back into the community. Some are awarded as grants to non-profits like churches and youth groups; some are awarded to volunteers who have completed a term of service. Components that fail testing are sorted into scrap bins and sent to recylcers. It is mathematically certain that some of the gold on the pins of CPUs that Intel produced last week was used in a computer before.

Places like Free Geek will need to ramp up in a big way if the corporate world makes a sudden change to Vista. Fortunately, that isn't likely to happen any time soon, if at all.

The initial user of the Software may make a one-time permanent transfer of this EULA and Software to another end user, provided the initial user retains no copies of the Software. This transfer must include all of the Software (including all component parts, the media and printed materials, any upgrades, this EULA, and, if applicable, the Certificate of Authenticity). The transfer may not be an indirect transfer, such as a consignment. Prior to the transfer, the end user receiving the Software must agree to all the EULA terms.

And let's not forget, also the home of http://freegeek.org/ "Helping the needy get nerdy since the beginning of the 3rd millenium"

A lot of commenters have suggested this is an unimportant story, robberies happen all the time, bigger robberies occur often that aren't covered, etc. But other robberies don't hit as close to home for the Slashdot community as a robbery of a nonprofit that cleans up used computers, installs Linux on them, and donates them. The function that FreeGeek performs is unique and uniquely relevant to Slashdot. It is both a charity that makes computers and the Internet more accessible to those who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it by recycling discarded computers, AND it broadens the Linux user base.

I cannot imagine a charitable cause more worthy of the support of the Slashdot community than this one. Before you post another comment suggesting this isn't an important story, please read the Free Geek mission page

Some friends and I might be interested in starting up that sort of thing here (which may not work as well, I live in an extremely rural area of the country). Do the other FreeGeek groups have any interest in helping out new groups?

Yes...though you've got to remember, everybody centrally involved at each location is busy handling real-live FreeGeek activities and maybe a separate day gig if they're not a paid staffer (here in Chicago, we're *all volunteers* at present and are still working on getting our 501(c)3 status!). Your best bet is to get on the FreeGeek Startup list at http://lists.freegeek.org/mailman/listinfo/startup and introduce yourself and state what you aim to do. Folks from most (if not all) of the FreeGeeks across the U.S. are on there and are generally of great help.

Free Geek here in Portland uses volunteer labor to recycle technology. They do a bang-up job of it. They've open-sourced their business model and new ones are evidently cropping up around the country.

They help hardware being used longer and spread computing freedom at the same time: http://www.freegeek.org/

*Most* "recycled" electronics in the US end up in trash heaps in China to be picked through by poor people. Gleaned for valuable metals. In these open-air dumps there are no controls on leaching metals into the soil, etc.

There are plenty of more responsible efforts throughout the country some of which are listed here:
http://freegeek.org/recycle.php

Does Dell *really* recycle or just dump the stuff someplace that pays them by the ton? And don't be mislead by Greenpeaces' approval. They score based on production toxicity not recycling cleanliness. Granted Dell's doing "something", but my point is we don't actually know where the boxes end up. TFA didn't say.

For those who don't own a Dell, there is Free Geek

OSCAMP, right. There's also FOSCON for the Ruby fans, held by FreeGeek [www.freegeek.org] a mile or two south-southwest, towards OMSI.

But there are lots of Free Geeks! Portland is merely the first and biggest.

Though London doesn't have one yet, many other places do: check out this page for links to many recycling orgs around the world, including several that use the Free Geek trademark: http://freegeek.org/recyclelink.php

And if you want to start up one in your own area, be it in Florida, London, or Uzbekistan, Free Geek Portland maintains both documentation on how to start one up, and an email list for motivated folks to stay in touch with one another, and pick the brains of established Free Geeks. The list is at lists.freegeek.org/listinfo and the documentation at wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/Free_Geek_Startups

Good luck!

-Pete
Outreach Committee
Free Geek

Anytime one of these articles comes up, someone posts a link to Free Geek, your local place where technology is recycled. That is because people think Free Geek is awesome. Because it is awesome. Although, you know, you can also learn a lot about Free Geek here

I found Free Geek a while back and liked the ideal a lot but as I'm in the UK it sort of died a death. I'm partially involved in PC recycling as an amateur PC builder and Linux advocate so it would be something I'd be interested in doing in my part of the UK. What I'd like to see is if any other like-minded UK Geeks would be interested in a similar 'franchise'.

They have a recycling system that gives back to the community. The basic idea is that geeky types learn how to strip and make good an old PC load Debian on and then it goes to the poor. After a certain number of builds they get to keep one for themselves. Sounds a bit 'hippy' but then internet grew on hippy-ish ideals and I for one commend the organisers on their selflessness.

Anyway please take a look at the Free Geek site and see what a GOOD THING it is.

Cheers.

Or here's some computer recyling in Portland Free Geek

Get in touch with Free Geek of Portland, Oregon. They've been doing this kind of thing for years.

The Free Geek model is to acquire older computers by donation, many from corporations, city governments and so forth, then refurbish them. The donators can claim a tax credit and have the assurance that no data will survive the hard disk wiping, reformatting, and testing process. Volunteers are used in stripping the incoming machines down to the component level, testing all the boards, CPUs, etc separately, then building up refurbished computers from the the pieces that survive the testing process. The computers are loaded with Linux and whatever FOSS they can handle. Some go out as "grant boxes" to other non-profits that need them; many are given as rewards to the volunteers (general volunteers earn a box after 20 hours of service; those in the Build program get to keep the 6th system they put together). There is a Computers For Kids program that might be of particular interest to you.

Components that fail the testing are recycled. Cases are smashed and sold as scrap metal, CPUs and the fingers cut from circuit boards are tossed in a bin and eventually sold for the gold content; etc. All this requires quite a bit of volunteer labor. Young people provide a lot of that labor.

Without Linux, this approach wouldn't be workable. Fortunately for Free Geek, Linux is a lot less demanding of system resources than Windows, and you can build up a very nice Debian with all the office and student basics from healthy components that simply don't meet the latest Windows requirements.

The problem with windows on refurb. computers is that you might not be entitled to the license that originally came with it.

There is a company here in Portland called Free Geek http://www.freegeek.org/ that recycles computers and electronic components. The refined their own version of linux to make a quite useable machine. Most of them are donated to charities, and not kids, but my understanding is that the people who receive them have little trouble using them.

There's nothing magic about Windows and Office... a decently configured linux box and open office are just as easy to use and just as effective for someone who doesn't already have a computer and isn't a power-user.

It's easier when you're showing strength in numbers, you know. One man outfits just don't have the same credibility.

I have long believed that Linux on the desktop is less a matter of feature parity than of education and technical support.

Here in Portland, we have a non-profit organization called Free Geek which provides both. They deploy refurbished computer systems with Debian and KDE. A huge number of them go to total computer newbies. Most of them love Linux.

Check it out...more organizations should be doing this stuff. And those who don't should take a look at how good education and tech support can impact usability.

My main issue is what to do with the broken ones. THe 3rd world already has too many gabage disposal problems as it is.

This is an excellent point. It really isn't socially acceptable anymore for an American institution to introduce high tech goods into any market without also paying attention to recycling the end-of-use waste. It will be a long time before volunteer agencies like Free Geek can extend their reach to keep dead laptpop batteries out of third world village middens. It seems to me that 15 million laptop computers equates to more than 15 million pounds of toxic chemicals that will eventually leach into the food chain unless the program is designed from the beginning to keep that from happening.

I hope that these MIT computers have a modular design so that the end users can canibalize parts from the one the elephant stepped on to keep the others going. Minimizing the waste is always the first part of "reduce, re-use, recycle" thinking.

Beyond that, I also hope that MIT is planning an appropriate supporting infrastructure for these laptops. If MIT plans to introduce 15 million laptops at a total cost of more than $1.5 billion, then I think they should also be making a some $1,000 diagnosis and repair kits that could each keep a several dozen of these laptops operational-- and which would function well in the village setting where they would be needed. (With the typical problems of unreliable power, spare parts storage without climate control, technicians who have a limited understanding of the technology, etc.)

And I also hope that MIT is thinking about a buy-back program or some other recycling incentive to keep these great new laptops of tomorrow from becoming one of the toxic waste problems of the next decade.

These are not insurmountable problems. But they do need to be addressed as an integral part of MIT's core program, with solutions developed at MIT. They cannot be foisted off on the hosting countries-- if MIT with all its resources cannot develop an effective way to heal the broken laptop and bury the dead one, then how the hell is a third world government with limited resources and massive immediate social problems going to come up with an effective solution?

So, MIT, does the program you are planning meet these criteria? Or are you developing a $100 disposable gewgaw that has the potential for destroying the quality of the crops and drinking water of the people you want to give it to? It wouldn't cost a whole lot more to do it right and there is all kinds of room for clever engineering in meeting these broader problems. But I do have a concern that the maintenance and waste management issues inherent in your proposal just aren't sexy enough to hold your attention.

Absolutely, especially at that spec. And it would have been easy, too: are you eligible for free school lunches? Then you're also eligible for a free, low-end iBook. Sign up: a lottery determines the winners.

Any extras should have been sold on eBay, and the funds returned to the school district's computer science budget. or they could have donated the whole lot to a group like FreeGeek.

Geez, they missed a real opportunity. They could even have required successful completion of a computer course to get a machine for keeps. Duh.

Guess Henrico really does "Think Different," even if they're going to Dull computers. Of course, different isn't always good.

If California is .com, Portland is .org in every way.

From the INCREDIBLY cool FreeGeek ("helping the needy get nerdy") - to the active Portland Linux/Unix Group to the Portland Ruby Brigade that put together the FOSCON mentioned in the OP - Portland has some great geeky stuff going on.

A few months back, I ran the exact same Craigslist help-wanted ad, looking for a great programmer for a well-paying job, in both Portland and Los Angeles Craigslist at the same time. (The job could be done from either Portland or Los Angeles.) The Portland ad was answered by about 30 brilliant programmers, all working on interesting things and seemed to be doing it for love more than money. The Los Angeles ad was answered by a couple clueless numnuts. I love Los Angeles for other reasons, but this was a telling experience.

No sales tax. Great public transportation. More hybrid cars per-capita than anywhere. Kennedy School. Free wireless broadband covers the entire city. A damn good place to live and work. And not a single tourist attraction.

Or is it only an Oregon Phenomenon? http://www.freegeek.org/, for anybody in the Portland Metro

Yes.

The government should step in and create the equivalent of Superfund for electronics. They could outsource the work to such fine organizations as Freegeek and Freegeek Penn, which already recycle computers on a volunteer basis -- and install Linux on them to boot.

And yes this is a serious issue; look at the problem of discarded cell phones in Europe.

Free Geek has a list of links to organizations, which (like Free Geek itself) promote computer reuse and recycling. The stuff you've got really doesn't belong in a dump, even if it's reached the point of being of no use to anyone.

If you're not near any of the places listed, please consider shipping your stuff to one of them. Most are nonprofits, which means you can compensate for some of your cost with a tax deduction, and you can feel good about knowing that your old crap is either being given to people who wouldn't otherwise have access to it, or is being taken apart and disposed of properly, rather than taking up space in a landfill and potentially leaching nasty chemicals (mmm, heavy metals).

And if you can wait five years, you can get the whole package for free at Free Geek.

contact the people at Free Geek -- all the machines they give away come with modems, and all the modems they get are scavenged from donated machines, so this is probably an issue that they have dealt with. they're also just a great organization. they can probably help with some of the other issues as well; they've been giving away refurbished linux machines to computer illiterate people for years now (a machine comes with a class on how to use a computer, and i think 18 months of tech support), so they've tackled a lot of these problems.

Wouldn't it be better to donate old machines to somewhere like Free Geek who 'remanufactures' them and gives them to people who could otherwise not afford them? It seems like a horrible waste to go and build childlike forts out of useful components. What ever happened to using cushons from your couch?

At Free Geek , we use nothing else. Of course, since we are a Linux only shop, our other choice is...Abiword.
It works very well for all our in house needs, which are mostly spreadsheets and word processing.

Well, some background on why I hate propietary rails.
I work at Free Geek .
We have, right now, about 1000 computers in our warehouse. (We don't bother to count, its somewhere in the four digits).
People bring us systems in all parts of repair and disrepair. Many of them are missing things like drive rails and bay covers. Some clever companties try to make clever case designs, with no standard bay covers and drive rails.
When we can't find the drive rails for the Compaq ConsumerStation5000, we have to recycle the entire system. Which isn't a problem, becuase we have a thousand more, buts its still annoying to recycle a computer system because the manufactors wanted cute pieces of plastic.

Don't forget about Freegeek in downtown Portland. They recyle most stuff for free but do have a "suggested" fee for some things like monitors. They also have links to other recycling programs.

Don't forget about Freegeek in downtown Portland. They recyle most stuff for free but do have a "suggested" fee for some things like monitors. They also have links to other recycling programs.

It would be easy to avoid such arbitrary levies, and to avoid governmental programs altogether. We just need more community driven projects like Portland's Free Geek.

The $10 levy is just like every other well-intentioned-sounding tax. It will end up being a money grab, the funds from which will never be used for the program's stated purpose.

FreeGeek

This project, believe it or not, already exists, at least on some level. Give them a call, and see if you can open up a chapter near you.

FREE GEEK was founded in February 2000 (and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) in April 2000) to recycle computer technology and provide low and no-cost computing to individuals and not-for-profit and social change organizations in the community and throughout the world.

In the four years since its formation, Free Geek has recycled over 360 tons of electronic scrap and refurbished over 3,000 computer systems that are now in use by individuals and organizations in the community.

Free Geek does most of this work with volunteers (at any given time, about 200 are active). The volunteers disassemble the donated equipment and test the components, which are either recycled as electronic scrap or recycled into refurbished systems. These refurbished computers are then loaded with Open Source Software, such as GNU/Linux, Open Office, and other Free Software.

Not to plug myself, but I even mentioned Free Geek and the idea of recycling computers to third world nations so that they could use them as "the cheapest library one could ever build" to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy when he came to my university for a round table discussion with other students. He thought it was a great idea (...so it must be?). [end shameless plug]

Free Geek rocks. You should read up about it, and find a way to make this kind of thing happen in your neck of the woods.

Never mind that big fancy OSDL out in Beaverton.... this is the heart of Portland linux.

http://www.freegeek.org/

OK, one of the hearts. But at least Free Geek is located in the real Portland, inner southeast, as opposed to out in sterile, wealthy, Geography of Nowhere, Silicon Forest, stripmall land....aka Beaverton.

Still it's neat to have Linus himself living here in our little old forest.

Portland is also home to Free Geek, a model for what computer reclamation / redistribution centers can accomplish.

I'm biased, but I think everyone at Free Geek has done a very good job at bringing Linux and Free Software to the masses, at least those of the masses living in the Portland area.

Founder of FreeGeek. This growing organization in Porland Ore. recycles old computer equipment and installs OSS, and puts it in the hands of people who might not have the money for a computer or the motivation or skills to get into Linux or Open Source otherwise. FreeGeek has grown tremendously in the last few years and is getting national and maybe international attention.

Although I grew up on an Atari ST520, later upgraded to a 1040 (eleet) a Packard Bell-produced P60 with 8MB of RAM and a 420MB HD was my first computer, obtained in late 1993. Windows 3.11. Lotta fond memories, even if some of them involve a lot of cursing and head-scratching, most at Windows. Occasionally some weird piece of proprietary Packard Bell technology would rear its head but on the whole it wasn't too bad of a computer.

That computer was eventually donated to FreeGeek - I still have the Atari, though.

• 5 different browsers
  
• 2 different office suites
  
• 4 or 5 window managers
  
• at least 4 text editors
  
• gaim, xmms, gimp, and lots and lots of games
  

As someone who has two fairly major Physics papers due in 4 hours and lives in Portland I can easily say this is the best news I've heard all day.

But why is this news? I hear you ask. Oh come off it, what's wrong with a little cult of personality now and then. Sometimes I think that's the only thing keeping Apple afloat.
Anyway let me give you a quick list of reasons why Portland is great:
1. Free Geek, our own local geek run charity.
2. lot's of great microbrews and wifi enabled bars.
3. And of course the beautiful weather.
And with that, where ever you are, may your beer be micro and your operating system free. Cheers