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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?"
Two winters ago I had finally hit a breaking point of cruft. 11 computers weighed my personal space down, sparc servers and stations, sgi indigo2s and dumb terminals, countless x86 machines in varying states of decay. Sounds like you? In a panic, I updated my slashdot sig announcing that my lan was for sale, more of a joke to myself, a poke at my own sloth. Amazed at an almost immediate response with a serious inquiry, I reconsidered my offer and realized, "why not"? What had that pile of crap done for me? It caused me anguish, it made me think every single night coming home from work, "one of these days, I'm going to clean this place up". And so I went ahead with it, and sold everything on my lan for 400 dollars. I got 1 new machine with it, and 10 months later, an ibook (with other money) I haven't looked back since. In that time I've started, and completed, many of the mundane backburner projects that were always on-hold for seemingly forever. My point to this post is, if you haven't used a thing, and are keeping it because you think you might, why not just get rid of the thing (and this, a chance to do it properly, and for free!) and not let it vex you, sitting idle in the corner, calling out to your procrastinations ... (admittedly, 2 of the 3 boxes i mailed were lost or destroyed. the third, the cables, was received a-ok. the buyer was upset until i told him i had insured them. somewhere, there's a little old lady with a bright purple indigo2 full of potting soil and philodendrons ...)
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Recycle your used tech with 5R Processors! They are the nation's largest computer recyclers and put a lot of the tech to work either through refurbished sales or donations.
Read jack phelps dot net
1) are they trying to get us into the store(s)? (hoping we'll do some business whilst we're there)
2) are they trying to do the public a service (by getting the possible toxic materials out of the dumps?
3) They're hoping (x)% of the materials turned in with have (y%) of redeeming worth, either directly, for sale on eBay, or as a donation to a local school as write-off donation?
It is impossible to get rid of monitors, at least here in Washington state. Even working monitors. Schools don't want them donated. Salvation Army and similar charities don't want them. You aren't allowed to throw them in the trash. All you can do is sell them, if you can find a buyer who actually wants one, or pay $10 for environmentally correct disposal. ($10 is for a 14" monitor; bigger ones cost more.)
So, this is a free service that is worth $10 or more if you need to get rid of a monitor. Cool.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Want to get rid of something for free?
I kid you not this ALWAYS WORKS.
Put it outside on a table with a hefty pricetag overnight, like a yard sale you didn't clean up.
Every single thing I've put out on the front lawn like that, including a carrion mini-fridge, groaning for burial, has been stolen!
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
You know, people will take these things even when you're honest with them.
My parents moved a few years ago from a 3000 sq.ft. house into an 800 sq. ft. condominium. Needless to say, not all their belongings would make the move with them.
My mother sold the best, yard-saled what she could, and then started making a habit of putting things out on the lawn every Tuesday afternoon with a big sign marked "FREE!". By evening, the lawn was empty, except for the sign -- and sometimes that was taken too.
After three months of her Tuesday give-aways, my mother had ridden herself of all the things she wasn't going to take with her. So, the Tuesday before the movers were scheduled to arrive, there came a knock on the door at 3:00 p.m. A shy, sheepish man with a wrinkled, stained shirt asked her if anything was available that day. My mother said no, wished him a good day, and closed the door.
She was surprized that he had the nerve to ask. She was ever more surprized when people came knocking all that afternoon and evening.