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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?"
Those suckers will buy ANYTHING!
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.
I have been pwned because my
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.
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
... 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
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
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
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
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!
Wil Wheaton? - What a self promoting whore.
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.
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
mogorific carpentry experiments
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
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.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
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.
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?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
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.
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.
It's an operating system, not a religion.