Proper Disposal Of Old PCs?

IMNTPC writes "Over the years, I've advanced from a 386DX-33 to a Celeron 1.3 Ghz system. I've slowly been accumulating enough old parts that now I think it's time to start disposing of anything that predates a Pentium 166. Does anyone know of a good place that will properly dispose/recycle of these old parts and PCs for little or no money? So far I've found pcdisposal.com, but anyone know of any others, either online or physical dropoff points in major metropolitan areas?"

Comments

EBAY!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Those suckers will buy ANYTHING!

Re:EBAY!!!

[ChrisKnight]

I second the eBay recommendation, but I would hardly call the people looking for older parts suckers. Some people still need older parts. I sell of my obsolete hardware on eBay, and I've been able to purchase hard to find parts there myself. I have a couple of VA Linux rackmount servers, and eBay was the only place I could find reasonably priced spare parts.

I've sold scsi cards on eBay for a dollar, and broke even on the shipping; and I am happy because I know the part is going to use and not into a land fill.

-Chris

Re:EBAY!!!

[eugene ts wong]

I heard that NASA buys XT processors on eBay. Can anybody verify this?

In keeping more with the discussion, maybe people should see if there are users in other countries that can make use of old computers? I hear people keep speaking about countries that can't afford the latest & greatest. Well, if they can afford the shipping, then they've got "free" computers.

Re:EBAY!!!

[zakezuke]

I second the eBay recommendation

I too am in favor of the e-bay solution. Not only did the parents make valid points on hard to find parts, but there is sometimes software / hardware that just doesn't run well on faster systems. Sloppy programing i'd imagine, taking the time from the cpu clock. Not to speak of some older ISA hardware that just won't play well on anything modern. Specificly...

1. E-prom programers... some people invested good money in a prom burner.... and why spend all that money again when you can just use a lame PC.

2. Obscure interfaces.... I know that I have a non scsi scanner which requires an isa card to operate.

3. Propriority TTL devices... often i've seen people use the printer port for TTL communications. In my experence, old motorola pagers are a good example of something that needs TTL logic.

4. MFM / RLL / ESDI / some tape drives (qic-02 / qic-36 ) ... The last motherboard I had that took ISA slots was an asus p3v4x and it didn't take too kindly to the ESDI controler I had, nor the qic-02 controler. I've had to borrow an older system to pull the data from some of my older disks / tapes.

5. Voicemail systems. Many a small buisiness were sold into a voicemail system that pretty much was a 386 / 486 class machine, with some 3rd party software and hardware that works perfectly, well, till the fans or disk give out.

In short... there is still a logical application for ye-old 386, though few and far between. Some bugger on e-bay might actually need a lame machine for a lame task when the cost to upgrade to something new is too out of bounds.

Old run down neighborhoods are great places

[ObviousGuy]

Just leave it out on the sidewalk and enterprising young people who are cash-strapped can build their e-empire using your old throw-aways.

It's the American Dream.

Re:Old run down neighborhoods are great places

[fataugie]

OK, I know this is modded funny, but another true story from my past working at a local bank in the facilities dept.

We would get orders on occasion to clean out storage rooms, repo'd houses, old offices, etc. The problem was, usually there was a bunch of stuff and only one dumpster behind our headquarters. We tried the "fill the truck and cruise around and fill up some other branch's dumpster" trick, but that usually ended in shouting matches.

If we filled our dumpster, the cleaning people during the week would just toss the trash bags on the ground and make a huge mess.

What we started doing was, the big, bulky items like chairs, computers, desks, whatever....we would place one at a time on the sidewalk (we were located in an urban downtown area). The longest anything ever stayed on the sidewalk was 15 minutes. People would take anything.

It was actually a win-win for everyone, the people were happy, we were happy, the bank was happy. No one could sue (we figured we'd say the item was "stolen" off the sidewalk if they tried). This was not a sanctioned event by the bank, but they really didn't care because the task was completed (items disposed of).

So, especially if you are in an urban setting, try leaving it outside on the curb with a "take me" sign on it.

Re:Old run down neighborhoods are great places

[Mesaeus]

I wouldn't use a "take me" sign, but a "valuable ! do not take this" one. Basic human psychology.

Re:Old run down neighborhoods are great places

[Reziac]

In fact, there are people who make a small living from curb gleanings -- pick 'em up, fix as required, sell 'em for whatever they can get. Everybody happy!

Re:Old run down neighborhoods are great places

[Bz3rk]

Somebody left a computer on the sidewalk next to the trash in my (not so run down) neighborhood. Took it home and it was a working 200mhz! Sadly, no porn was left on it.

Re:Old run down neighborhoods are great places

[RackinFrackin]

I know someone who used this strategy to get rid of an old nonfunctional fridge. The fridge was in his workshop, which is in a really bad part of the city. When it died, he put it on the side of the road, expecting the garbage pickup to get it. After it sat there for a few weeks, the sanitation dept told him that he'd have to pay to have it hauled away. He put a for-sale sign on it one night, and it was gone the next morning.

Re:Old run down neighborhoods are great places

[dasmegabyte]

I used to work for a state university computer center. We often got rid of a number of still useful, but aging machines, all at the same time (when we got money for new machines and had no room for the old ones).

We wanted to give them to local elementary schools. But in order to do that, we needed permission from the state bureau...which took forever, took a ton of money, and was basically a major hassle..

So here's what we did: we befriended the guy in charge of the security camera on the loading dock. We brought him subs and beers. Then, when it was time to toss out computers, he would flick the monitor to a different relay for 20 minutes, and we would move everything out.

Yeah. We stole it. And donated it to a "foundation," who removed serial numbers and gave the machines to the school.

Apparently, the director of the computer center liked our plan...he stopped scheduling pickups for throwaways. Just put them on the loading dock, and let them disappear.

Give them to schools

[rastakid]

You could give your old systems away to schools and such. The schools with younger kids (up to the age of 10-12) are still able to do a lot of things with older systems, like grammar and mathematics educational games, requiring not more than MS-DOS. Of course there are enough schools with a rather big IT budget, but there also enough school who have to do it with less, is my experience. And they will really be glad with your donations.

Re:Give them to schools

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

You could give your old systems away to schools and such. The schools with younger kids (up to the age of 10-12) are still able to do a lot of things with older systems, like grammar and mathematics educational games, requiring not more than MS-DOS. Of course there are enough schools with a rather big IT budget, but there also enough school who have to do it with less, is my experience. And they will really be glad with your donations.

Please don't donate very old hardware to schools. Many schools have policies that require them to accept donations like this, and others might accept the computers because they don't realize how old and worthless they are (remember, the article mentioned "older than a Pentium-166").

All you're doing is shifting the disposal cost to the school, which may end up costing them more than the value of the computer itself.

Keep in mind that schools typically do not have a staff of IT people to repair computers, install software, train teachers, etc. I wouldn't argue if you wanted to take an old but perfectly working computer, load it up with educational software appropriate for a particular grade level, donate it to a specific teacher who's interested, and train him/her on how to use it. But my guess is that's not what you had in mind.

Re:Give them to schools

[RTPMatt]

if your in the San Jose, CA area, RAFT takes donations of all types, and cleans/fixes them and sells them them back to teachers. They have a department spcifically for computers & computer related stuff. if you want to donate, or are a teacher looking for cheap classroom computers, i stongly reccomend them.

Re:Give them to schools

[openmtl]

As the IT person at a local school I don't automatically accept any PC and I tell staff to not drop off PCs that they get given. Why ? Many reasons.

Firstly software: Being On Microsoft Schools Agreement means that any PC will thus cost money each year in the per-PC fees EVEN IF ITS USED WITH LINUX/*BSD. Don't matter - as long as its a Pentium class PC its fee liable.

Most PCs that are handed in are slow, maybe of a motherboard brand thats not well know (meaning company gone bust so no BIOS updates) or of a unusual processor e.g. Intel in a AMD site or vis versa of uses old EDO memory (which now costs a lot to replace) or ....and it goes on.

Also the device has to be electrically tested (which costs money) and prepped with correct build (driver issues here) plus would usually have to have a optical mouse added (small kids and balled mice don't mix !) and usually a new (i.e. clean without coffee and food) keyboard. Sometimes the harddisk is just 1 Gig or so which was big a few years back but now doesn't fit our standard image (intended for 2.5 Gig or higher). We also get offered old 14 and 15 inch screens - waste of electricity and room now. I'm happy with 17inch or **flat** but not less than that.

This all takes up valuable time. Now in 3rd world and LDCs time is cheaper than parts but in any first world country time is the expensive component and taking old PCs is a false economy.

Now many companies are dumping PCs on schools: why because in the UK and EU PCs are deemed as hazardous waste and thus have expensive disposal costs. They see schools as a nice way of offloading dispoal costs. Yeh great thanks but no thanks - we have a room filled with old '386/P133s already ! Once you have one router/firewall/Nessus scanner PC then you don't need any more.

Re:Give them to schools

[bloosh]

As the IT person at a local school, I accept any Pentium based machine with PCI slots. Add one 100Mb NIC, disable the hard drive, make a boot floppy and I've got myself a perfectly good X terminal to connect to my LTSP (http://www.ltsp.org) server. The slowest machine I have like this is an old AST Pentium 75. Runs Mozilla, OpenOffice and most everything else perfectly. Even runs our Windows based reading software via Wine. I am fortunate to work at a school where most of the administration supports me and trusts my judgement. They also seem to like the money I save by not using Microsoft products on every computer.

You could...

[tomstdenis]

... say throw linux on it [or wipe the drive] and donate it to a local school. You could post a bulletin in your local newspaper [usually you can find ways of doing this for free] and offer it for free.

I can imagine there are families out there that wouldn't consider a P166 [in working order] a "bad computer".

So I'd say as long as your older machines still work clean on up and offer it to someone needy.

That, or you could fill the thing with propane cylinders and explode it in a local abandonned quary. Make sure you tape it and post a url to your video later on!!!

Tom

Re:You could...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mind if someone accepts donated ancient computers to use them at home, but don't donate them to schools. A "free" 486 or slower will cost more in lost administrative time than the price of a non-free low-end Duron system which can handle current software. Don't take teachers away from kids. They will do a much better job without your trash. Just because some schools' computer labs look like computer museums doesn't mean you have to add to the misery.

Re:You could...

[leprasmurf]

I disagree, reason being school teachers don't really need access to the computers during class time or whatnot (at least not in my old HS). I could see many uses for an old computer, hell my main computer crashed and I'm on a 150Mhz computer right now. You could put it in a student area and allow them to browse the internet behind netnanny or something. They can't cause to much trouble because the computer can't handle causing to much trouble.

There are other uses in schools, my typing class couldn't have been on much more than a glorified type writer/part time paper-weight and I learned well enough. At absolute worse the schools themselves could even give them to the less than well off students, they would know alot better than a stranger who is in need if they are any type of teacher to begin with.

Some garbage tips have a place for them.

[danamania]

When I lived in Sydney, one of the nearby dumps had an area where old computing equipment could be left. It -claimed- to recycle these properly, but I can't vouch for the truth behind that.

There seem to be many places that will take ancient working machinery too, and use it as donation equipment - for some people, a simple 386 is heaven. In 2001 I helped shuffle some of this stuff around, and for students who had absolutely no access to a computer for doing university work at home, a 386 that could edit text was a godsend. No, it's no use for software development or comp sci courses, but for those students who do only need to type up essays and the like, a simple machine with floppy is well appreciated and more than enough. Not every college course is comp.sci or IT.

Personally, I just get a new one and push the old ones to the side. They seem to become part of the furniture and I don't notice they're there any more :)

Ebay

[Killshot]

I put all my old parts, working or not on ebay People are actually willing to buy them In fact I read an article a while back that NASA has been trolling Ebay for old computers to power our space shuttle.. apparently upgrading isnt as easy an option as it is for the average computer user

Re:Ebay

[AKnightCowboy]

I put all my old parts, working or not on ebay People are actually willing to buy them In fact I read an article a while back that NASA has been trolling Ebay for old computers to power our space shuttle..

If you've got any old Cisco 2501 routers be sure to put them on eBay too since NASA is especially looking for those for their shuttles... yea, their shuttles, that's the ticket. Make sure not to priced it more than $150 with the buy now option.

Google, my friend... google.

[gr8fulnded]

PC Disposal Dell, HP, and several other big players all offer various PC disposal programs also.

Welll.....

[UnCleverNickName]

There's always Goodwill. They'll take it and put it up for sale for ya. I buy a lot of old Macs from there. Their pricing is a bit odd with regards to computers, the bigger the box the bigger the price, that's the way they do it here. So while I got a 600Mhz desktop for 90$ they wanted almost twice that for a huge ppro machine hehe. Oh, and don't forget your local Churches and boy & girl scout organizations - they have computer/PC merit badges and a used PC is a great way to get their feet wet!

Re:Welll.....

[velo_mike]

There's always Goodwill.

I think this varies by area. When we left Denver for Europe 2 years ago, Goodwill wanted to pick and choose - some clothes were ok, others weren't. 3 15" monitors were unacceptable. They wouldn't take dishes but some cookware was ok, we were combining 2 houses into one and leaving the country, basically everything redundant had to go. In the end, I ended up telling Goodwill to piss off and took everything to ARC (Assoc of retarted citizens) or the battered womens shelters. Same tax right off, less headaches.

Schools don't want them

[Anonymous Coward]

Licensing problems, lack of support, and a myriad of other problems plague these old computers.

They will turn you away at the parking lot, let alone allow you to drag that crap in through the front door.

Re:Schools don't want them

[Stephen Samuel]

Licensing problems, lack of support, and a myriad of other problems plague these old computers.

Licensing problems are only an issue if you insist on running Wintendos. A P100 makes a fine SOHO firewall.. Throw BSD, smoothwall, etc. on it with a spare ethernet card or two and you're flying for DSL/Cable.

They're also fine for all sorts of classroom uses that don't demand heavy computations. This would include things like doing word processing with AbiWord (Not sure about Open Office, though -- haven't tried it)

Re:Schools don't want them

[stuartkahler]

A P100 makes a fine SOHO firewall..

Actually, it doesn't. Back when a router cost $200, an old computer was a good way to run your net connection. Nowadays, you can get a router (with 802.11b AP and 4 port switch, no less) for as little as $30. The difference in electricity costs for running this 24/7 come to $5-10 per month. Not to mention the space savings, and the lack of noise or heat gain.

Re:Schools don't want them

[FCKGW]

Does your $30 router have near-infinitely adjustable firewall rules? A real DMZ (real = separate subnet)? The ability to act as a VPN endpoint? Cool traffic graphs and logging? Even in the age of $30 router/switch combos, an old PC is still a great way to get features that come mostly on very expensive corporate routers and firewalls.

Old PCs also make awesome little servers. Even a family of neophytes with multiple computers could use a shared file space, and us geeks can set up our own file/web/FTP/DNS/DHCP/time/backup/whatever servers. Personally, I have a P166 as a router, a P133 web server, and a P133 backup server. My file server is a Tbird900 only because I use it as a desktop sometimes.

Re:Schools don't want them

[stuartkahler]

I used to like the geek factor of being able to point out my server computer in the corner that I built from scrap parts in the garage. Last summer, I realized that the thing was noisy (god, I hate constant din of fans and hard drives), bulky, and continuously converted a ~100 Watt power feed into heat in a room that I did not want extra heat in. Plus extra AC costs from May - September. And I was paying roughly $8.64 per month for it. (.1KW/H * 24h * 30 days * $0.12/KWh) That's over $100/year!

The space I picked up from dumping that system gave me the room to put in a nice third system to invite an extra friend over for LAN gaming. My old K6-2 server was ass for playing games on.

Now I automatically mirror important files across the LAN to the other computer. Media files are in a shared (read only) directory. I can open the FTP port to my main computer if I want to let a friend FTP some files from me. My backup router is sitting on the shelf at Best Buy 3 miles away.

Traffic graphs and logging... Who cares? I don't have a 13 year old son who needs regular grounding for surfing for porn. My connection is 3mbps/384kbps, so I don't even need complicated load balancers. And I do want all of my machines to be on the same subnet for gaming.

I only know one person who needs more than a router/firewall for his machines at home, and he opted for multiple connections instead. He has a dedicated line to work (which then connects to the net), and a dedicated line to the internet. The two networks never touch.

I can understand using an old system as a terminal for web surfing instead of a better system, or setting it up as a 24/7 print and file server for homes with the other computers spread across the house. But using it as just a firewall/router is like driving nails with a jackhammer. It might be fun, but you look stupid doing it.

It seems like you're using a lot of that old hardware because you can't bear to dump it, rather than using it to fill a legitimate need. Do you really need to do your routing, web serving, and backups all on separate machines? You're like a smoker carrying around matches, a lighter, and two pieces of flint.

Depends on where you live

[Seraphim_72]

Here in sunny Minneapolis ther are several places that will take them - my fav charges 10 cents a pound, and then they part them out and have a salvation army type store next door for the parts. I regularly dumb off my old carp, and then go shopping afterward. Managed to get some great deals on stuff and the monitor prices cant be beat -(17" for $20, 19 for $50) all good stuff too

Sera

Re:Depends on where you live

[number11]

Here in sunny Minneapolis ther are several places that will take them - my fav charges 10 cents a pound

In sunny Minneapolis (Hennepin County), residential recycling pickups take computer gear for free. Monitors, computers, printers, cartons of dead keyboards and power supplies, everything. And if the weather's dry and you set the stuff out a week before recycle day, it will often vanish before the appointed time.

industry barometer

[Anonymous Coward]

One way to check up on the "state of the art" as practiced by the average schmo is to check out the curbside pickings. For a long time in my area, the curbside offerings were Pentium 1 machines with FX chipsets and 16K to 32K of DRAM. In the last six months things have improved. Its not uncommon to find PII 300 systems or AMD K6 300 systems with 64K or 128K. Disk drives now are now usually a respectable 4 or 5 gigs or so.

One weird thing is all the perfectly good monitors that end up in the trash. I've found two Dell Trinitron 17 inch units in the last few weeks alone. Not ragged out units but clean and in excellent working condition. I suspect the reason so many good monitors end up at the curbside is the move to flat screens.

The weeks after Christmas are a good time to keep an eye on your neighbors trash. They have to make room for their Christmas computer and the old one will end up by the curb. Happy hunting.

You should start earlier

[wackybrit]

Instead of hoarding and facing this problem, you should have done something about it a long time ago. I upgrade all the time, but when I do, I always find someone to sell the old parts to, or can put them in a machine I'm building that someone buys from me on the cheap (this is how I seem to upgrade my CDRW about a billion times a year). But you need to get rid of old parts before they become old, otherwise you end up with the problem you're in now.

If you sell the parts while someone still really wants them, and will pay good money, then you remove the whole problem of disposal. (Well, technically you push it on to someone else, but that's just as good) So next time you upgrade, go out and get those benjamins! It helps you rationalize the upgrade if you can get 50% of your costs back too ;-)

recycle tax

[Potor]

if you live in belgium, then you can give back the parts to electronics dealers, or dispose of them ecologically soundly at a community dump. we pay a small recycling tax on all electronics over here, and that is used for disposal. ps, this post comes from a p166. merry xmas, potor

Check with your state recycling program

[weave]

Check with your state recycling program. For example, Delaware has a free electronics recycling drop off program.

If your state doesn't have one, push your legislators to start one too. Point at Delaware as an example! It beats it ending up in a common landfill without proper handling.

I too have been meaning to do this

[aardwolf204]

I wonder how many other slashdotters have closets full of computer parts. Sometimes I think to myself that this is ridiculous. I've got 3 closets in my apartment and I refer to them as "monitors closet", "case closet" and "parts closet"... Even invested in drawers for the parts closet so I can find what I need (IDE cable, PSU, mobo) quickly.

Why, oh God why do I keep 512KB SIMMs!! Someone just steal this stuff from me!

Re:Two options

[davmoo]

Sorry, but this is an urban legend and could get you in to trouble with the IRS.

The value of your old 386, when you donate it, is NOT the $3000 you originally paid for it. The value of your old 386, for tax donation purposes, is what a reasonable person would pay for it on the open market...in otherwords, maybe $20.

This applies to anything you donate that is used, not just computers. If that old junk heap of a vehicle in your front yard would only get $300 if sold, then that is its value for tax donation purposes. Giving it to the Goodwill does not allow you to write off the $17,000 purchase price when it was new. And the fact that organizations give you a blank receipt and allow you to write in your own value does not change tax law.

Will you get caught and busted for overstating the value? Probably not, unless you do it all the time. But still you should be aware of what you are doing when you put it on that tax form.

Usually here I would put the usual IANAL, but this case is different. Besides being a computer programmer, this time of year I also am a paid tax preparer with bookoo training on the subject, and my mommy works for the IRS.

A similar question

[Monkelectric]

Does anyone know how to recycle lead acid batteries? I've got a whole pile of dead cells from UPS's.

Freegeek in Portland, OR

[hazem]

In Portland, OR, there is Freegeek: www.freegeek.org.

They take all kinds of computer equipment. They refurbish what they can and recycle the rest with "responsible vendors" - meaning places that don't just ship it off to China.

Drop-offs are free, except for monitors, which cost $10 because of the difficulty in handling all the metals and toxic materials in monitors.

People can also volunteer there in their different programs and get "free" computers for their work.

Re:Freegeek in Portland, OR

[mysticgoat]

Free Geek charges $10 / monitor to cover the cost of shipping them to a recycler that can break them apart safely. People (and businesses) bring in their old systems and leave with a receipt that's of use at tax time. It is up to the donator to estimate the value of his donation.

Free Geek runs three programs that are kind of interesting:

• A, for Adoption program: do 24 hours of volunteer time and you earn a Freak Box (lot's of high schoolers in this program)

  Freak Boxen are currently spec'ed as: 200 - 233 Mhz CPU, 96 Mb ram, 3 - 4 Gb HD, NIC, sound card, modem included, Debian as the OS. Volunteers get a four hour orientation to common home computering under Linux, a working system, and follow-up support.

• B, for Build program: assemble five computers from salvaged parts for Free Geek's programs, then you can assemble a sixth one for yourself
• C, for Collaborative Technologies programs: Debian systems, support, and training are provided to area non-profits like charities and churches to move them away from the costs of proprietary systems.

Here's the link again, in case you missed it in the parent: Free Geek

The Build program is a kick. Building systems from salvaged parts gives is giving me a whole different perspective.

Help the Third World

[Hugh Mayfield]

Depending on where you are, Computer Aid International may be able to help. If you're in the Bristol/Avon or Reading areas of the UK, a great little charity called Computers for African Schools might be interested if the machine is at least a P75, 32MB RAM, 1GB HDD. These guys do some excellent work, refurbishing these machines and shipping them out to Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia. I work with them on occasion, not so much because I want to help the third world (though of course that's important) but mainly because I hate to see good machines go to waste.

386 usage

[Jacek Poplawski]

on 386 you can still do interesting things:

• programming in many languages (just without visual shit^H^H^H^Hide)
  
• edit documents in text editor (then compile them with LaTeX!)
  
• watch picture collection
  
• play NetHack
  

All you need is good, new monitor, because old one can be bad for your eyes. Other parts of computer are perfect to use with completly new software.

Dell Recycling

[InnovativeCX]

Yesterday afternoon I received a Dell ad in the mail. On the back cover, they advertise a new PC recylcing service. For $7.50, you can recycle up to 50 lbs of computer equipment, up to three items from any manufacturer. Additionally, they give you a handy 10% off coupon for use toward a new Dell purchase.

Furthermore, they have also launched a new Dell Donations program to benefit the National Cristina Foundation. If you have hardware (ad says 'above Pentium I'--ambiguous as to whether or not your P-166 would be accepted), they'll take it and fix it up for disabled/disadvantaged children and adults.

Instead of forcing you to drive or UPS it to a distribution center or a warehouse, they send an Airborne Express guy out to your house or business to pick it up. I have to admit, I'm rather impressed by this program.

More information available here.

Re:Dell Recycling

[SoupaFly]

I used this for some old 386 systems I had laying around collecting dust and it worked like a charm! I did some looking around and didn't find many options for computer recycling. The Dell program was really simple though. Simply online order form. Then you just put the stuff outside your front door on the day specified. Couldn't be easier. HP has a recycling program too (looks a little bit more expensive than Dell).

Anywhoo, I was a little upset about having to pay someone to recycling my old electronics. I guess if you consider the fee as a shipping cost though, it's not so bad. Better than dumping more toxic crap in a hole in the ground too.

Re:Two options

[afidel]

My CPA told me you are probably safe with the greater of the 'reasonable sale price' or purchase price minus standard depreciation table methods. You just have to be able to justify it to an auditor should it come to that. Obviously overvalued deductions can get you flagged for an audit and should you be overstating your case the fines, penalties, and headaches will make it SO not worth it.

Re:Valuable metals...?

[tomatobasil]

A '384/486 era motherboard contains between $1 and $2 worth of recyclable metals. You need about 5-6000 pounds of boards before processing them is economically worthwhile. Mainframe boards are worth anywhere up to $4 per pound. Junk like the power supply boards and boards inside CRTs are worth roughly 12 cents per pound. All numbers are in $us, 12/2003. Real numbers from someone in the biz of buying dead ones by the semi-truck load. It all gets processed in the US. Yes I'm buying, but only if you have a few thousand pounds of scrap minimum.

Dell Recycling

[mmurphy000]

Dell runs a recycling program, and they take other manufacturers' equipment as well. They take PCs, printers, monitors, etc. There is a per-item charge, but it's fairly low (PCs are normally $15, but it looks like it's "on sale" for $7.50). That covers the shipping - you just box the item up, and on the day they specify, leave it outside, and Airborne will come by and take it away.

Check it out at the Dell site.

I've used this program to recycle a dead 17" monitor, and it worked like a charm.

pass it on...

[humanerror]

I donate my geek skills to a non-profit here in San Francisco (an experience which has given me new insight into the phrase "legacy systems")... I scavenge hardware for parts off the free listings on craigslist.org. The usability and quality is generally better than what we get from donations (usually from local businesses looking to get rid of ancient hardware at no cost, just like you).

If you live in an area covered by craigslist, just post a listing in the free section... someone will take it off your hands, I assure you. Or, take a few moments to locate a worthy local non-profit or charity and make a call or two. Even if the ones you call have no need for it, chances are they know some other org that would love to have it.

Recycling is just one part of resource lifecycle management... don't forget about reduction and reuse.

WTF?

[tuxette]

Being On Microsoft Schools Agreement means that any PC will thus cost money each year in the per-PC fees EVEN IF ITS USED WITH LINUX/*BSD. Don't matter - as long as its a Pentium class PC its fee liable.

Am I understanding this correctly? That you have to pay a fee for every Pentium class PC you have, even if it doesn't have Microsoft crap on it?!

If so, find the moron responsible for signing such a contract, and slap him/her silly.

Not true

[eamber]

I work for a school district in rural Lancaster, PA - and I'll tell you: We have an entire old schoolhouse building FILLED with skids stacked with old P166's - probably at least 1000 of them ... and monitors to go with them. We can't even give them away. No one will take them, and believe me - we've looked.

Freecycle

[PacoTaco]

Maybe try this. Also good for non-computer stuff.

don't underestimate the sidewalk

[mr_burns]

If you live anywhere urban the sidewalk is amazing.

I was walking down the street with my gf at the time in Oakland and there were these old 486's and p60's laying around. I busted out the cybertool and started harvesting ethernet cards. People came by with tools who had seen them 15 minutes or so earlier than I did and I started helping them build machines and pick the best parts.

However, you can't just abandon the machines or leave them for the dept of sanitation. The amount of lead and other nasties in computers is environmentally hostile. One thing to do is advertise that you're doing this. I see this on craigslist.org (or any other location based classifieds) a lot. Postings like: "I'm gonna leave this stuff on the corner of this and that at 5pm" are common and get the word out to people who need parts and can't afford them.

After the compu-hyenas have picked the carrion clean you should take responsibility for what's left and decide, based on what's there if you want to recycle or find a place to dump that will do so ethically.

in the San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley area

[danimal]

there is the Alameda County Computer Resource Center. They even have a list of fees that they charge to make sure they can properly dispose of the items. They take many types of electronics, "We want everything you can plug in that you don't put food inside of." They also turn around and provide computers and other things that work or are repaired to schools, charities, non-profits, and disabled folks. So it's a win-win situation, you get rid of your computer parts and they help someone else.

Re:You lazy fucking American!

[ChuckCaves]

What the hell say do you have about the content of Ask Slashdot? It's an American site... I guess the reason that you hang out here is that wherever you come from must have extremely boring websites since you seem to have to hang out in an AMERICAN website to find interesting material.

And as far as laziness goes... America is the MOST productive country by far in the world. We work more hours per week than any other country (not sure about Japan... they are probably close to us). But Europeans? They are always on vaction... we work over 40 hours a week on average... while the lazy Europeans work 35 or less... but that's okay... as long as you guys stay lazy... we will maintain our economic superiority.

So go hang fire bloke

Yet another reason software 'upgrades' are evil

[plopez]

These 'upgrades' are filling up the landfills with potentially hazardous items (lots of heavy metals etc.). So when Microsoft (or Oracle or HP or IBM or whoever) forces you to upgrade the hardware because thier bug ridden bloated software will not run older equipment, they are making profits at the expense of our environment. In addition, individuals and businesses pay taxes and tip fees to dispose of the equipment. This amounts to a hidden subsidy of the profits of the software and hardware companies. It is planned obselecence of the worst sort.

We need, in the US, a system which charges the disposal fee upfront, so there are no hidden costs. In addition if anyone is looking to innovate, a truly recyclable computer would be a great goal.

Re:Two options

[Reziac]

On that note -- having watched the used computer componets market for a long time, I've concluded that half of *current new wholesale* (NOT retail) for that part is a fair price for used parts; anything higher is a rip-off. So for example if a 40g HD currently wholesales NEW for $50, a used 40g HD in good working condition is worth $25. But it's NOT worth half of the $300 you may have paid for it back when it was bleeding edge.

Was only a few years ago I saw a classified listing a "fully-loaded 286" for $800. Yeah, it probably cost over $3000 new, back around 1988, but in 1998 you were lucky to get someone to haul away a good working 486 for nothing. Some people sure have fantasies about the value retention of old computers!!

Really?

[GPS Pilot]

Really? If I couldn't afford a newer computer, I would gladly accept a donation of a 486, if the alternative was not owning a computer at all -- which is the situation most Africans are in.

What makes you think differently about this?

The ACCRC in Berkeley

[VonGuard]

Probably not near the poster of the topic, but folks in the SF Bay Area can check out the Alameda County Computer Resource Center. They were /.'d a couple years back. They won't rebuild you 386, but they will strip it down and recycle everything inside without a single scrap going outside of the US for those purposes.

Re:major metropolitan area?

[Reziac]

There is a guy who makes clocks out of old dead hard drives and sells 'em for $25 -- very neat stuff. I'm sure a little googling will bring up his site; he has instructions for how to do it yourself, too.

I've mentioned this before, but... in Bozeman MT there is a circuit-board company that used to pitch out all their defective boards, til they noticed the horde of local artists scavenging their trash. After that, they started selling 'em at a buck or two apiece. Seems the boards were in demand as bases for wall art. Similarly, I've seen some motherboards that were downright pretty (bright green with lots of parallel copper visible), that would probably strip down into nice art backings, especially for some sort of internally-lit hanging doodad. Anyway, it's a thought for you artistically-inclined types.

Dell

[Chalex]

Dell Recycling will pick up your old computer for like $10 AND give you a coupon for Dell's website.
Dell Recycling

What's so special about recycling PC's ?

[llzackll]

You always see on some TV show or newspaper article that throwing away PC's with the rest of the garbage is bad for the environment. Maybe so, but why do they always single out PC's ? Pretty much every electronic gadget in existence uses the same stuff found in PC's..

Re:Destruction Fest

[Tim Doran]

Good lord - you know that monitor glass is *loaded* with lead, right? It's enough of an environmental impact when intact, but shatter it into a thousand pieces and dump it in a lanfill?!?

Please, please, please dispose of your monitors properly, if nothing else.

earth911.org

[comeonpilgrim]

I used http://www.earth911.org/ to find local places that would take my old (non-working) parts for free. They even took old laserdisc players and walkmans.