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What's the Best Way to Recycle Old Tech in the US?

Posted by Zonk on from the reuse-for-reduction dept.

Tim Danhamn writes "SmartPlanet.com, a green-focused Web site, has put up an article about the best way to recycle your old tech, including local recycling centers and reusing old technology in other ways. I'm about to upgrade to a new PC and I have a lot of old radios, MP3 players and other electronic goods lying around the house. The article though is mostly about solutions in the UK, so I want to know - what is the best way to recycle old tech in the US?"

6 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. I know, I know! by east+coast · · Score: 5, Insightful

    what is the best way to recycle old tech in the US?

    EBay.

    Seriously, what better way to not trash something by getting what life (or parts) are left in it?

    People get some good money for hardly working/not working tech on EBay just for parts alone. And hell, you may have no use for that old P350 but someone else on there just might. Why not let them have it for a few bucks+shipping?

    --
    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    1. Re:I know, I know! by Tore+S+B · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Speaking as a computer history freak - Pentium 166s are not old enough to be fun, and they're too old to be useful.

      They're outdone by embedded chips in washing machines. No, really.

      --
      toresbe
    2. Re:I know, I know! by vux984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, they are right smack dab in the sweet spot for classic PC gaming, which are notoriously difficult to get running under windows or in emulation programs because they heavily direct access to video hardware, dos interupts, and required as much of that 640kb main memory as you could possibly give it [I recall having autoexec/config setups that dropped support for the CDrom, and used an 8kb mouse driver to run a particular game that actually came on CD. I had to do a full install of the game from CD, and then run the game without CD support in order to have enough RAM. These games were also pretty cpu clock sensitive.

      I keep series of early PCs around for precisely this reason. Getting games like XCOM, Masters of Orion II, Might and Magic IV, Star Control II, Echelon, Privateer I/II, Wing Commander I/II/III, etc, etc can excruciatingly hard to get going without sound issues, with the proper framerate, with multiplayer (null modem) support etc...

      I can be almost impossible unless running on real hardware from the era.

      A P166 would make a good platform for late dos era games, and early win95 games.

    3. Re:I know, I know! by lord+sibn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You can count on anything you sell on eBay finding its way to a landfill.

      Your desire to recycle tech is not passed on to your buyer, who is merely looking for cheap stuff.

      That is not recycling.

      There has to be SOMETHING better than eBay for this.

  2. Nooooooooo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As much as I like recycling. There are collectors for EVERYTHING. Please do a minimum search, even on eBay to see if someone would like to buy your "junk" before you consider sending it to get recycled. I collect old DEC computers (PDP & VAX) and I've seen too many good old "classic" computers get recycled that lots of people would probably enjoy tinkering with. Old radios are probably the same. One mans junk is another mans collectable

    TDz.

  3. Re:Damn by StarvingSE · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You do realize that the reason you're supposed to recycle your electronics properly is to keep heavy metals out of the environment. You mention that dumpster divers take most of the stuff, but anything they don't take ends up in the landfill. I'm not trying to harp on you, but if you throw out old electronics this way out of laziness, you should know the consequences on the environment.

    --
    I got nothin'