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"eCycling" Pilot Program in 5 States and D.C.
Mr. Slippery writes: "Several /. stories have discussed the problem of disposing of electonic gear laden with hazardous materials. The EPA, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, DC, and about a dozen corporate sponsors have launched a pilot program to collect and recycle computers and electronics. The objective is to collect data to "develop a long-term cost effective system to remove computers (including
monitors & peripherals) and TVs from the municipal waste stream."
(My car is now loaded up with five monitors, 3 old HP RISC worksations, several partial PCs, an old TV, and various parts and pieces for the Baltimore County drop-off tomorrow...if any area geeks are looking to scavange old gear this might be a prime opportunity.)"
It's a shame these programs don't put stuff aside so that poor geeks (like - the really poor ones with hand-me-down 386's and the like) can get some old hardware.
:)
Most of these places are just pure break down and destroy. Which makes sense economically, but still..
Perltop - GTK / Perk Desktop environment
We should be reducing our consumption of computing equipment, and thankfully huge performance gains in recent years allow us to own them longer.
Reuse is a great second consideration. You probably have very high standards for you computer's performance...but I bet you neighbor doesn't! GIve the damn thing away to someone who can make real use of it.
Finally recycle. A great first-step approach here would be to start a business that takes disposed of computers, strips them down and uses the parts to create ultra-low-price boxes that can be resold. For example - consider two individuals discarding PCs because of resource starvation in one aspect of their systems. Jimmy drops of a Pentium with a twenty GB hard drive. Ann drops off a PIII with hardly any disk space. Well, combine Jimmy's disk with Ann's CPU and you have the start of a PC that you could actually sell for maybe $200. Of course you would be obligated to cleanly dispose of the parts you don't use, but you get the idea. I'm surprised someone hasn't tried this.
Others may be able to make use of your old PC. There are many places arround the country, like Freebytes in Atlanta.
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People in New Jersey and New York City might be interested in the Trenton Computer Festival next weekend. Lots of old junk to buy/sell/barter/gawk at. Recycling is good, but if someone wanted to pay for your old junk, that's even better.
When I owned my computer store I used to get tons of computers that people would just give me that I wouldn't buy from them I had the whole basement fl of antique computers. You could put a free ad in your local paper and people would probably give you more computers then you could handle.
http://Lenny.com
They have an automated shredding and separation system for electronics. Such systems have been around for a while. A combination of grinders, screens, AC and DC magnets, cyclones, and float tanks separates out ferrous metals, nonferrous metals, dense plastics, and low-density plastics. Once separated, the metals have some value, the high-density plastics have some marginal value, and what's left is no worse than household waste.
CRT recycling is still a problem. There are very few plants that can cut up a CRT and recover the leaded glass for use in making new CRTs.
Anyone know anything about places like this in New York? Preferably the Rochester area.
Since it sounds like you're looking to acquire old hardware rather than discard of it, check out the Rochester Hamfest at the end of next month. Info is at www.rochesterhamfest.org -- the swap meet is huge, and I've gotten tons of toys there over the years. Right up the street from RIT.
--g