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Office Depot Wants to Recycle Your Old Computer
IcerLeaf writes "CNN reports that Office Depot will happily recycle one old electronics item per customer, per day, from July 18th through September 6th. Qualifying electronics include computers, monitors, printers, scanners, fax machines, digital cameras, cell phones, and TVs 27" or smaller. Office Depot and Hewlett Packard will be splitting the bill. What's coming out of your basement?"
People throwing stuff out when I could use something besides the 1994 era Pentium I have right now.
While I think this is great of Office Depot, I think re-implementing some of the older technology to maybe some younger siblings, cousins, Boys and Girls club, etc. could also be good. There are still a lot of people that can afford these types of things. So, before you go recycling that 486 at office depot, thing about re-deployment!
Don't dispose of your old monitors. They have lead and other hazardous materials that we really don't want in our groundwater. Please take this opportunity to have them disposed of properly.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
The companies would not disclose how much their program will cost, or how they're splitting the bill.
There's no cost. There's a lot of money to be had in the recycling industry -- especially in recycling electronics. They sound like they're just in it for environmental and humanitarian reasons, but they're in it for their wallets first and foremost.
My wife pointed out that ebay is one of the most powerful resources in recycling that we have today. I'd have to agree. I don't know what Office Depot is doing with these machines, but wouldn't you rather have your old gear to go someone that can make use of it?
For example, I recently got a "new" used car. It came with tired I didn't particularly like. I replaced the tires in fairly short order, and sold the old ones on ebay. They were a mis-matched pair. One pair I sold and because of shipping difficulties I ended up losing about $5 on it. That's less than the $20 I would have paid to take them to the dump, which is probably what would have happened if not for ebay. And now someone has a pair of tires in good shape that they can make use of.
The other pair I sold for $90, because they were not an "off brand".
I've been putting a bunch of my junk up for sale. Things that aren't really useful to me, but are to other folks. Plus, once in a while you come across the rare things like the Dreamcast Ethernet adapter that I sold for twice what I paid for it, or my classic HP calculator which looks like it will sell for almost twice what I paid for it.
Usually, I first offer it to local folks in my Linux Users Group. Selling is much easier that way, and you don't tend to have to muck around with shipping. ebay makes shipping pretty easy though.
So, remember that recycling isn't just about giving things to the "recycling centers". If you can get it to someone who can use it, all the better. If you can recover a few bucks in the process, all the better.
Sean
Recycling is better than throwing out, but I recall it only usually saving 20% energy. Reusing, on the other hand, is much more efficient.
My dog ate my sig
Must be the same "bill" as the one they have for recycling(gee, what swell guys) those $20 inkjet cartridges.
Seriously, corporations don't do jack unless they think it'll help them sell their wares. If Office Depot and HP aren't making money by giving all the junk to a recycling company, they're expecting to steal away customers from Staples and IBM, with good will. They're probably doing both.
Sorry, but touchy-feely posts about corporations doing "good stuff", like sponsoring breast cancer research(a favorite for companies looking to increase female customer numbers, such as BMW), disgusts me. Yes, the byproduct is "good stuff gets done"- but don't go on about them doing it from the bottom of their hearts or because they -care-. Corporations don't have hearts, and neither do boards or executive officers. They do it because they want to sell more stuff and want the PR points- it's pure greed.
Please help metamoderate.
Serious Unix machines never die. They are simply less powerful than a newer model. Doesn't mean you should throw them away though. You never know who might need a cheap Unix workstation to get some work done, run background computations, or perform simple serving (e.g. sendmail).
You can keep the x86 cruft, however. They're older than the dinosaurs the day after they're released.
Old SGI/Sun computers definately look cooler. They definately are cooler. But they require a lot more to get to work, and you have to have special keyboard/mice/monitor adapters in most cases.
If you just want a *nix box to run sendmail or just for the sake of it, it's usually more efficent to have an old Pentium II (which are almost always faster unless you're doing 3D stuff on the SGI) and run Linux/BSD on it.
If you just want a *nix box to run sendmail or just for the sake of it, it's usually more efficent to have an old Pentium II (which are almost always faster unless you're doing 3D stuff on the SGI) and run Linux/BSD on it.
But they lack the flexibility of the Unix hardware. That stuff was designed to work no matter what, to be fixable no matter what, and to be remotely accessible no matter what. You just can't get that type of reliability out of an x86. It simply isn't built for the type of abuse that a Unix machine was engineered for.
Call me when PCs get OpenBoot, and I'll begin to consider them for serious work.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
They're going to spend technician time at $30 an hour to fix up (or dismantle) now-worth-$20 laser printers that they have to ship to anyone at $30 plus packaging? Not to mention the enormous amount of broken / hopelessly outmoded / unsellable computers? Or to wipe the hard drives? Even to traige this equipment into saleable v. nonsaleable would wipe out the price delta immediately.
By the way, speaking as someone who's spent a lot of time at various nonprofits, please don't be so casual about kicking used tech equipment to them; 90%+ are white elephants that end up taking up much more time, space, etc., than they're worth; only give something away if you talk to them about it first. (and are willing to support it if it comes down to that.)
Well, the three legs of the triangle are reduce, reuse, recycle.
:)
Or in the case of Microsoft, "Reboot, Reinstall, Redhat".
(personally I prefer FreeBSD, but that doesn't start with an "R")
Here in Seattle that stuff would still be on the table a week later, still needing recycling and also soaking wet.
Hello,
The answer is simple. I belong to a third group: women who, sometimes, enjoy joking and burning karma. Jokes might be good (or bad ones), but they are just jokes, and they pretend to be just jokes. I do not pretend to catch everybody's attention, but your comment really does.
Kisses
--
You'd stumble in my footsteps (Depeche Mode, "Walking in my shoes")