Slashdot Mirror
Changing a School's Tech Disposal Policy?
An anonymous reader writes "I attend a state university where a new building has recently been put in, and a new budget put in place. They have decided to upgrade all the computer systems involved in the department, with a few slight exceptions. From my limited understanding, State policy is that we cannot just let things go, they have to be sent back to the state capital in order to take them off the books. Then they put them in the dumpster. I feel that this is a huge waste of useful machines (some are merely two years old), but I know not how to change this. Any suggestions, or does anyone know where Illinois dumps used tech?"
This article http://www.txstate.edu/effective/UPPS/upps-05-01-02.html found in the first page when Googling "State of Texas Computer Disposal Procedure" will show that the AC truly does have a limited understanding of how things work.
FP?
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
http://www.computersforclassrooms.org/
While the computers need to be taken off the books, that is accomplished by paperwork. There are computer re-furbishers and recyclers like the one listed above (a non-profit 501.c.3) that will take any and all computers as donations to be recycled or deployed to schools.
Usually the biggest pain is the stupid paperwork needed by the state to remove computers from inventory systems. They ought to just expire all computers from inventory after 5 years (or whatever), automatically.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You might want to verify that they put them in the dumpster. I work in state government and all agencies here send old equipment to state surplus, which lesser funded agencies can get things out of and the leftovers are sold to the public at auctions. If your state government is just tossing all its surplus then you should contact someone in your state legislature about changing such a wasteful practice.
You need to sepll better.
It's perfectly normal to lease a machine for three years, while it is covered by warranty/service contract, and give it back after the lease expires.
The failure rate of old equipment goes higher and higher, and without proper maintenance contracts you'll start of getting into unstable territory.
It's perfectly OK to do it this way. It does not make sense spending an inordinate amount of resources of keeping a huge park of a variety of machines running.
Instead, standardizing on a few machines and tossing them out when another technology renewal is due is *good*. It makes management easier and allows IT to keep things running smoothly.
Several schools run surplus sites that list all of their inventory they want to get rid of. I've bought a few (older) computers for really cheap this way.
Dark clothing + ski masks + pick-up truck @ 3am ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
For large institutions, disposal means "sale" just as often as it means "dumpster".
Maybe check into the specifics of how things are handled.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
after the equipment is taken off the books, it's sold to the brother-in-law of some administrator for $0.50/ton. He then cleans up the PCs and sells them to government schools (via a contract he has with the superintendent, who happens to be his nephew) for 150% of what their new value was.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Have you looked at GovDeals at all? I work for a state agency in Missouri, and all of our equipment ends up being sold to the public through that site. I also notice that Illinois has a good deal of equipment there also.
Go to http://www.state.il.us/CMS/1_buying/statesurp.htm, which is the firs tlink on Google when searching for "Illinois state surplus auction" for more info.
Go to our state online auction site to see if they end up there, too.
There's a reason Central Management Services exists -- it's to provide the central management of the services all state agencies need to kkeep duplication of effort to a minimum. One thing all state agencies need is to dispose of surplus equipment.
It seems utterly wasteful. Over where I am, departments can send their used equipment (not just computers) to a central repository that's open to all other departments (and open to the public on certain days). Of course, for computer equipment, the harddrives are wiped.
Our CS department, at least (where I work) upgrades the systems every two years.
Not only do we have to dispose of all the old machines, it's my understanding that we're actually paying some company to dispose of them, for liability issues.
It's really, really stupid, especially considering how many poor people in the area could benefit from these great machines. Make them sign a waiver and be done with it, for crissakes.
when new computers come in, the old ones are all gathered in a room, and we have an ITS Garage Sale. PC's for $25, monitors for $10, and other misc. stuff that they're getting rid of. The computers are usually 3-4 yrs old, so it's not a bad deal if you don't have a PC already.
"Then they put them in the dumpster."
... maybe you can find more details regarding your state ...
Isn't this illegal in most places? This is an old article
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2004/704/essentials/p70.htm/
As for my company, we use a regional organization for disposal of computer and electronic equipment:
http://www.turtlewings.com/
"Keep at least 3-6 full bottles of hard alcohol on hand, a 2 week resignation notice,..." - Poetmatt
When I was working for an Illinois university. We took all old equipment and carried it to another building where we locked everything up in a big caged room for it to sit there forever.
I'm not sure if the "anonymous poster" is wrong, but I suspect he simply doesn't have any inkling of the actual process in place at the university in question.
Here at the University of Washington old tech - heck, old equipment of all sorts - has to be gotten rid of following very specific steps. Very few of those steps lead to the dumpster unless what you're discarding is truly junk. Items can be given to other departments, for one thing. Items can also be released to surplus, where the wider public will be given the chance to buy them.
#DeleteChrome
Most state universities have a Surplus Property building where they will auction this kind of stuff off to you. YOu can almost always get a dirt dirt cheap too. There is a 14 bay disk array full of 80gb disks that i bought (with disks) at surplus for $150. I can get dual P3 4gb Ram proliants 1Us for with 32gb scsis for $150.
Make friends with the dean, and convince them that their Univ. needs to do the same.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Purdue university seems to have a reasonable solution. They send all the surplus (computers, furniture, lab equipment, etc) to a warehouse outside of town. Other departments get first crack at anything, then the equipment is sold to the public. Every few months they hold an auction to clear out stuff that hasn't been bought and anything left after that gets dumped. This seems like a good model to me.
http://www.purdue.edu/surplus/
"but I know not how to change this, any suggestions, or does anyone know where Illinois dumps used tech?"
What the fuck are students actually learning these days? Is it all just memorization followed by regurgitation at the end of the week?
Isn't there any schooling on general "How to find shit out on my own" anymore?
A quick Google shows that many Illinois state university have surplus programs in place for handling old capital equipment. The same processes are in place at the two large universites I have worked at before.
My guess is that are are some new guy (or student) that really don't know what is going on.
ÕÕ
...which is a large Big 12 school, the biology, chemistry, and physics departments generally find it easier to just put the computers out in the hallways and wait for them to disappear. I've gotten all kinds of weird old hardware from them. There are also disgruntled IT staffers that have been here a while that will happily provide hardware to friendly fellow geeks instead of sending them to the dumpster. Those folks have gotten me AUI transceivers, a few SGI workstations, and a huge box of SGI software, including several releases of IRIX 6.5. Some of the other departments will pull a computer out of retirement to serve a specifc purpose. Since I work at a spinoff of the university, I asked nicely and got a P4/Celeron box to use as a server for a joint project, and a fully equipped, mint condition, never used Sun Blade 2000 for my desk...er...for another server. :)
I'm patiently waiting for the university to retire/throw out its 8-node Origin 2000.
If the state truly does just dump this stuff (which it almost certainly doesn't), sick the media on them. With "Green" being the new "PC" (no pun intended), not a politician in the country would want to be seen as dumping useful equipment/toxic waste into landfills. The state will change its procedures in a big hurry.
I don't know how Illinois does it, but being in the State University of New York (SUNY) system, I can tell you that our surplus stuff ends up on ebay if it can't find new homes through our property management:
nyssurplus-albany
FWIW, that office actually handles (at least) state schools, prisons, and mental hospitals. Some interesting stuff gets sold through that group, to say the least...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
They may also feel the need to dispose of the computers as a privacy issue. The State Gov. I worked for at one point also just dumped their computers because they didn't want the potentially sensitive data on them to end up in the hands of the public.
So it may be a more difficult task trying to change the rules to allow for reuse of these computers.
I'm in Illinois and went to a state college and also worked for a not for profit company in Chicago. I'm pretty sure used stuff that was bought with state money was sent back to Springfield somewhere where it was sold by pallet to anyone who wanted it (other schools, not for profit institutions, etc). I know for sure that this is what happened to old stuff from the not-for-profit (something to do with the tax breaks they were getting so they couldn't resell anything), and I always assumed that's what happened with the college stuff, too.
There is a non-profit in Springfield, IL called ComputerBanc that might be able to help you. I believe they're on the web at www.computerbanc.info
From my experience with working at a Computer Recycling/Refurbishing Charity, if there's anything 'good' like RAM, Laptops, larger LCD monitors, etc., don't expect any of the 'condemed' hardware to reach the bins (or us!) ... Light-fingered Employees at every stage will decide that their Kids/Helpless Relatives or eBay are more deserving.
/we/ had to pay to dispose of. There was maybe enough left to build 4 recycled-XP-licence 256MB RAM XP systems.
The latest donation we got from a Coal Loading Facility was of three full palettes of ~2 year-old Dell desktops and laptops. ALL 20 laptops disappeared as we went to collect them, and all the desktops had their drives and GB sticks removed, having us discover after moving everything we had only junk left that
When I worked for my college's IT dept, we had the same rule - a decommissioned PC must go to warehouse where they used asset tag to remove from accounting books. Thing is, they only cared about whatever the asset tag was affixed to. We could literally gut the PC down to nothing but case, so long as the empty case w/ tag made it to the warehouse. A $20-30 case brought them back to life. Not convenient, but certainly not as wasteful.
sell them to the Air Force for use in their botnet?
I used to do admin work for a group at NCSU. While there was quite a bit of bureaucracy in it, these seemed to work well overall. Essentially, you told the accountants/etc that you were replacing equipment X. They would then make it available for request from other departments first. Sometimes there were takers, but usually not. After that, there was a public sale. Fun stuff like old sparc stations and DEC alpha boxes was available for geeks for cheap (often $10 or less). Also other stuff like old office furniture, etc. After that, if it didn't sell then it was disappeared in whatever manner appropriate (often recycled, sometimes trashed).
It seemed to work pretty well overall. You could skirt the whole thing if the equipment was paid for with grant money instead of university funds. Would seem like it would be made better if you added in something like craigslist/freecycle. I would check and see if your university system has anything like that, and if not, suggest it.
Sometime these things may end up here:
https://ibid.illinois.gov/secure/default.aspx
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
There is a document called the funding terms and conditions which details what you can or can't do with assets. Thats where you need to start. There may be a clause in which you can donate old equipment to other state programs...
At my current job and my previous job, once it came off the books (after 5 years) and we no longer wanted it or wanted to replace it, it was fair game. My former employer used to sell some stuff really cheaply to employees and they only used the dumpster as a last resort. Here we just give stuff away if anyone wants it. At my last job, I had the authority to get rid of old equipment and we had an old Sun workstation that had no use for us any more but one guy wanted it. I wrote up a letter in Word and printed it out for him. It stated that the equipment was no longer on the books and that we were giving it to him for free and that I had the authority to give it to him. I signed it and told him to keep the letter just in case in the future somebody ever tried to give him some crap about it.
When I was at PSU, we collected it all up, and redistributed throught the campus, upgrading lesser computers... so in the end we would end up with the oldest of the old. Then that pile (because we were a PSU branch campus) would be trucked back to PSU - Statecollege (Main Campus) after they picked over it, they would wipe/destroy drives and sell at the student junk store that they ran out of the office of the physical plant. (OPP, yeah - you know me...) I don't know if that is still current situation or not, but I bet it is similar elsewhere.
Now I'm in the K-12 world, and we collect and redistribute the tech throughout the district. Then we usually have a yearly "surplus" auction to get rid of leftoevers. Not just IT, but also maintanence vehicles, (old or broken) chairs/desks, office equipment, etc.. But trust me.... If it makes it to the sale, it is usually 1 step from a landfill.
By then I've raped the machines for memory, drives, powersupplies, video cards if they have them, etc... Previously, we ended up with just shells of computers that still had inventory tags. The PARTS are useable, but not the machines. We would usually leave the MB and Processors unless it was still being serviced in the district. The key is that we never know when funding may get tight, so we have to canabalize everything we can and be happy when New comes down the line.
BTW, when I say "I", I mean as a representative of the school and employee... I am not advicating that "I" took Tech for myself... I am saying that "I" have to fix the stuff and we kept the parts pile supplied with the old tech. In no case should you ever "TAKE" anything from the school. That is a no-no. If your desperate for old tech, you may want to start by "ASKING" the school, not posting on slashdot...
You might be surprised that in the end it may go back out to the community in other ways, such as outreach programs, jail programs (yes, they train techs in some jail education programs) etc... etc.. So just stealing something as suggested elsewhere is NOT the answer. You'd be surprised that you may find where the state has some type of sale or auction for it and get it for cheap. Assuming again, that it has a viable use at that point.
BOFH+1 Hate theives+0 but may help you find end sale/recycling info for friend+0 with Beer+6 approach. YMMV.
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Normally a lot of the problem is about accounting.
If they are returned vs. given away vs. stolen. all accounts differently in the books for tax purposes. If your university is state owned it is probably an issue that it is easier to trash the computers then give them away because then you will get groups saying they need them more then other groups. No it is not fair or easy but thats the governemnt.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You may wish to try contacting the University of Wisconsin's SWAP program. I'm not sure how they have set it up, but it basically takes all of the old equipment and sells it to general public. This includes, computers, desks, oscilloscopes, incubators, etc. It is a bit like going to the best garage sale ever.
I don't know this program started, but it sounds like the kind of thing you're looking for. Trying to get in touch with some of the folks in charge may give you insights into how to get it to work.
In the end, though, I suspect that setting up something like it will take a lot of paperwork and will have to be approved by about 20 committees.
Most likely in China, Africa or India since US is unwilling to take care of their own electronic waste or even follow (and ratify) international treaties.
So yeah, do a world a favor and buy off some used tech before it goes to 3rd world countries where children have to sort through it.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002920133_ewaste09.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-waste#Problems
http://www.ban.org/photogallery/index.html
Who cares about saving money in the government any more? You can just get some more bonds issued... more free money! It's even better if you're the Federal Government, the Federal Reserve will loan you all the money you want. You can loose (literally) tons of hundred dollar bills and not care! A few computers a couple of years old is chump change. Maybe you didn't get the memo.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Yeah, I know. People are gonna say, "I hate on Micro...". No, this isn't hate. This is thinking outside the accepted ecosystem and upgrade cycle.
Load Linux and a basic X server with KDM or GDM. Connect to one expensive or speedy box running any Unix or Linux via X-server connection. Cheap remote desktops. No remote connection licenses required. Also replaces dumb X-terminals that normally cost $1000s.
Load with Linux, basic X environment, VNC Client or Rdesktop - Free Thin Client.
Min 400 Mhz with 256M ram and 4G hard drive with Linux - OpenOffice/Firefox/Flash/Mplayer with codecs - Economical Multimedia Mac/Desktop - Secure Unix environment
Min 200 Mhz with 128M Ram and Linux - Single purpose server/firewall
And the best part of all. All these PCs can be remotely administrated via command line using SSH, or graphically using VNC, or X-programs like Drakconf or YaST exported to a Unix/Linux/Mac desktop running X.org graphics.
===
Want Freedom? - http://pcfreedomusa.com/
My company does the same thing. Any old computer equipment is taken to the dumpster -- and any offers to take it (or even to buy it) are rejected by the head of IT, who insists it has to be thrown away because of something to do with tax depreciation. Once, when my computer went down (it was the power supply) he insisted the hard drive needed to be thrown away with the computer -- so, NO, I couldn't have several years worth of stuff, even to take the hard drive home and recover it myself.
And of course (this is off-topic, but somebody will ask) he limits server space, so there's no room for real backups, and third-party storage isn't allowed.
Open Solaris - http://opensolaris.org/
FreeBSD - http://freebsd.org/ (excellent bridged IPless firewall capability)
NetBSD - http://netbsd.org/
I live in Springfield (Yes, an alderman here is Gail Simpson and our state is indeed run by cartoons), where the state's computer systems get "dumped". They are disposed of the same as state-owned automobiles: by auction. Once or twice a year they sell used computers at the fairgrounds by the palletload.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
A family member of mine works at UNCC and he deals with the a similar policy, all of their "obsolete" equipment gets sent to a warehouse.
The only way to get the stuff out of this lockup is to buy it through a NPO.
We've liberated a few of the PC's by funneling them through our church. Hell, it's even tax deductible!
I work at a college in illinois (chicago to be exact) and we don't throw out old systems. Every few years when they feel necessary or professors complain they will replace our department computers. The computer support people delist them from use and mark them as storage. Then they sell the systems for dirt cheap to students and faculty (who get them for free). I don't know of any policies in place regulating how many systems employees can take but I'm working on acquiring number two right now. I assure you, at least not at this college, they are not tossed in the garbage. Not only is this wasteful and stupid but it is also against the law IIRC. Computer components are very hazardous to the environment. You can't just throw that stuff out. It has to be recycled or disposed of properly, like any hazmat or chemical material.
Spoken like a true Cubs fan, who thinks the southern state line is I-80, Rod.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Contact your governor, explain the waste and list a few ideas. Charity, Auction, used for retraining of unemployed people.
If that doesn't work, you could also contact the largest paper and see if someone will do an article on the waste.
Oh wait, Illinois...perhaps you should just shut up and support the union~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
All computer inventory must be sent back to the state where drives are be wiped clean (this must be done, and there is a fee for it). Then the computers are often auctioned off by Illinois Centeral Managment services ...
see http://www.cms.illinois.gov/cms/1_buying/
-AC
The last time I got involved with something like this, I asked my employer at the time (Alcan Aluminum) if they would donate their out-going used computers to the local high school. I got a firm "no" - from the lawyers! Liability trumped charitability. Hopefully your mileage will vary!
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
What probably happens is the old equipment is put on a school list and offered to other departments. What they don't want is sent to the state (removed from the school's inventory but still on the state's inventory because they paid for it). The state offers the stuff to state agencies. What state agencies don't want gets auctioned off, so as to get maximum value back from the taxpayer's investment. Depending upon the stuff, it might get bought by a company for its own use, a store for resale, or a recycling company for whatever value is in the parts. Whatever won't sell will get to experience the state's garbage procedure (for computers it's probably a recycling process).
I worked for the University of Colorado as a Student Assitant for a few years and my most hated job was property disposal. Due to the high restrictions of the uses of funds and equipment the state requires audits on all equipment yearly. Any obsolete equipment needed to go through the "Disposal" process. The way CU does it is that the equipment needs to go to a facility to determine if any part of the equipment is salvageable, anything that isn't then is sold at auction to the public during the year.
If I were you, I would lobby with the student government or university leaders to see if equipment could be sold at auction instead of being dumped. Put it as a win win. University gets rid of their old equipment, and they get a stream of revenue.
New Jersey?
See for yourself at:
http://www.doa.louisiana.gov/lpaa/auction.htm
I'd be kinda surprised since you generally have to pay to dump large quantities of stuff, and a much cheaper way is to auction off the old stuff.
That's what's done here, everything gets sent to surplus and sold there. If it's all broken down, non working stuff it is often sold in bulk and usually bought by a scrap dealer/computer recycler or the like.
At any rate, just check it out. I'm not saying it's impossible they just dump it, it jsut seems unlikely. Why pay to transport them and pay to have them disposed of, when you can instead have someone pay you (even if it is just a small sum) to come get the from you?
State of Washington has a Surplus Sales store that sells used IT to the public, NO OS, minimal memory and what ever hard drives were in the boxes. $70 buys a DELL GX240. That's about two years behind what is on the desk. there is a pecking order of who gets to use the equipment first. Buy two and beef one up.
Probably along the Illinois river.
Ah, I can see my score now.
Those that live along the river give me +5 Funny.
Everyone else gives me -inf Offtopic.
I dunno which school you mean, but at UIUC they have a big warehouse in Orchard Downs area where they keep all the surplus (also includes desks, chairs, book-cases) until it goes to the state. This is just for internal UIUC use and you require a Surplus Redistribution Form signed by your buildings facility manager. That sounds like a handful, but it's actually pretty easy to get. You are on good terms with your facility manager right?
In your specific situation I would go talk to the department office and find out who the manager in charge of surplus disposal for the computer switchover, they might be able to help you as well.
In addition, you can get some really sweet nuke-proof desks and stuff to really geek out your office.
From UIUC:
SURPLUS REDISTRIBUTION
Surplus equipment and furniture are available from the UIUC Surplus Redistribution Facility, located in the Horticulture Field Lab Annex at 1707 S. Orchard Drive.
The state of Oregon uses eBay to offload all of it's old and surplus equipment. To check out their store: http://stores.ebay.com/Oregon-Surplus-Property
http://www.ucpnet.org/aten.html
United Cerebral Palsy's Adaptive Technology Exchange Network.
I just used them last week (hi guys!) to clean out a server room and 50 old G3 Macs, beige-box PCs and various CRT monitors.
Not only that but they took old a/v gear, 3/4" Sony u-Matic decks, cables, the works.
What they can't refurbish, they recycle - support a good local cause, help provide job training and skills to students and disabled adults, and donate old equipment to needy schools throughout IL.
I used to work in the IT department of a Highschool, and we came up with a great way of dealing with this issue.
In it's infinite wisdom, the school district would put the inventory barcode on the computer case, and inventory it as a computer, rather than inventory the components. So when we were done with a computer, and it was ready to be decomissioned, we would strip out the case. Everything that was usable would come out. Power supplies, NIC's, HD's, Mother Boards, etc. These would then be put into storage, and used to maintain and upgrade the rest of the computers. (Filling up RAM slots, adding extra HD's, etc.) This way, we would always have a supply of spare parts on hand in case we needed to replace a faulty component, and repair components wouldn't come out of our budget. (That way we could buy more and better new machines.) The cases would be sent to surplus.
As a side benefit, if anyone's personal machine broke down, there was a huge supply of good parts to use.
In Pennsylvania, the law (or at least how it was described to us) was that you couldnt throw away anything in a school, but you could 'donate' it to a recycling center. Of course donating it to there, costs you money, since they need to process it, wipe hard drives, throw away junk, melt down things if needed, and then auction them off to whoever they feel like.
This of course costs money, a certain price per pound, something on the average of 50 cents i think it was. Although we were in an economically wrecked area, where many students didnt even have computers at home, we were not allowed to give them even the most basic windows 98 machine for example. We had to pay for it to be sent to a company to be 'recycled'.
Administrators get really ticked off when you give students broken computers for free.
China?
I've dealt with issues similar to this(working in educational IT in MA) and they can be really frustrating, watching good, salvageable gear go to waste. The trouble, though, is that there are pretty strict rules in place and, while they lead to perverse results here, they have a purpose.
If there were an easy way for us, or connected third parties, to obtain deactivated property without substantial oversight and documentation, the potential for fraud would be pretty ugly. All to easy to just declare something obsolete and then just sell it out the back. If you can locate and connect a worthy cause that needs computers(a school, charitable program, tech education setup, etc.) with a sympathetic character in the administration, I suspect that you could get something worked out. Grabbing a few for yourself, though, will just have to happen out of the dumpster. This is one of those places where the rules suck; but getting rid of them would cause real trouble.
Risking the wrath of responders who will claim I don't know the difference between California and Illinois (I do. I got my bachelors in CA, and I'm getting my PhD in IL), I'll mention that at UC Davis, old computers (and other interesting equiptment) are sent to the UC Davis Bargain Barn where they're sold.
here at MIT, we have a fabled set of mailing lists which everyone uses for passing unwanted stuff around -- not just tech: furniture, books, etc. it's called reuse - http://web.mit.edu/reuse/ it's really a good system!
If it's a "huge waste of useful machines" then don't replace them at all.
You guys apparently have the money to buy new machines even though your old ones work fine. Please publish your state and which government institution you are part of so no one ever has to take your calls for budget increases seriously again.
Thanks.
I used to work for a community college in Western Washington and I was in charge of the surplus management for several months. What WE did, and I'm assuming what many other colleges/universities do when we get new computers (for whatever reason) is give them to the department who requested/needs them, bump their old machines on down the line and so on and so forth, then pile the oldest machines into a surplus area. That's where my job came in -- I had to inventory all those machines (most were barcoded with a State Tag identifier), then turn in the spreadsheet to management, who then submitted it to the higher government level to get it taken off the books. After THAT, the computers were picked up by a local non-profit who used them for low-income families and training, etc. So no, they're not being "wasted" and thrown into the dumpster. The ones which actually get discarded are more likely to be 5+ years old.
Back in the day, the UNM ran my work site in HI. Theoretically, surplus gear should have gone back to Albuquerque, but the U figured out early on that shipping old gear from HI to NM was a losing proposition. Instead, the small-kine gear was written off and set on the back dock, where the techno-menehune would sprit it away. Unfortunately, surplus IBM SP2 clusters were considered worth shipping back.
Nowadays, the current contractor runs a tighter ship, and follows the Federal surplus equipment rules. At some point, it'll be plastic-wrapped on pallets and auctioned off. However, we're on a Neighbor Island, rather than Oahu, so there's not much of a market for old crap, even as scrap. In the meantime, the surplus gets piled into unused offices and shipping containers out back to the point that it's coming out of our ears.
I am in the Student Government in my school and we deal with state legislator's all the time. If this is something you are passionate about you can talk to your Student Government (possibly join them) and get some action going on campus. Bring this to the public's eye. Have the student government talk to the state legislator's and you can help get it changed.
I don't know what state you're in, but in California, it almost certainly doesn't work that way. I can't say with complete certainty about the state universities, but state departments send their outdated equipment to the Department of General Services. DGS then auctions the usable hardware to the public--you can find auction dates on their Web site. What they do with nonfunctioning equipment I'm less sure about, but I believe they turn it over to computer recycling companies. (I'm in the IT group for a state department; in fact I'm the one here who sends equipment to DGS.)
MTU sells them at local auction. I picked up a pair of G5s for $350. They went at the recent Van Pelt Library book auction, which I donated books to. I'm a personal friend of Eloise and Bill, sparkplugs of the auction.
Just so you know, the library is across from the ME-EM, aka the BrickDick.
Pay attention to the postings in the Daily Bull, and you'll be a lot happier. Trust me, da Tech loses nothing, although the staff are poor bargainers.
I've grew up in Naperville and live in Peoria, and I can tell you anything S of I-80 is like a different state.
:)
It's not bad, just different.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
My ex-wife started a program at Heartland Community College in Bloomington Illinois. Started off as a class for 10 - 15 year olds but expanded to include classes for adults. Computers that were being cycled out of inventory were broken down into components by the IT department.
Students pay their $90 enrollment fee and are given a "kit" to use in the instructor-led class. They learn about the individual components and how they work together, assemble the computers and get some simple troubleshooting experience when one component or another doesn't work.
They then learn how to load an operating system, get their machines onto a network, and at the end of the class get to take home a working computer with 4 year old hardware for $75 plus a bit of sweat equity, not a bad deal for a kid whose family can't afford a computer. The class takes place in 5 two-hour sessions over the course of a week.
It's been popular enough that the local university (Illinois State) and a major employer in the area (State Farm Insurance) have taken to donating old machines to Heartland for the program. Saves on the recycling costs and gives young kids a jump start in the basics of computers.
partially regruntled codemonkey bloomington, illinois
Does your university not have a technical support listserv for faculty/staff members? If not, start one up! If it does, speak up! Once that is done, in all sincerity, take Principles of Accounting I (Financial Accounting) for audit and have the university pay for it. Once that is done, show it is more cost-effectives on the books to dispose of them properly.
Talk to you again in about 5 years...change doesn't happen that quickly in higher education.
As has been pointed out by others, government property usually goes to surplus. BTW, if you are underfunded and work for the government or a big lab it is often a good idea to find out where the surplus is -- often they will be happy to transfer all sorts of good slightly used stuff with only a bit of paperwork. I know people who have done things like produce an entire working machine shop out of stuff they got from surplus. Anyway eventually it will be sold for auction if no one else in the government takes it. If your state government doesn't do that then you need to seriously talk to you state senator about waste and abuse.
It would be nice if someone working for the government could quickly point out that something is broken or too old to do anything but throw away, or so new that it needs to be resold NOW. Unfortunately that will likely never happen. It is all part of my 60 minutes theory. At one point it was probably a policy where someone working for the government could do something like that easily. But then someone somewhere was likely abusing the system by saying things were broken when they worked just fine and then selling them off for high profits. Likely this ended up on 60 minutes and so now there is a large wasteful government agency to prevent this. No the system isn't perfect but believe it or not often it evolved in a certain way for a reason.
Anyway you can go to gsaauctions.gov to get where the federal government eventually auctions its stuff off, or you can contact your state to see where they auction their stuff off. Want to get a slightly used crown vic that was once a tricked out FBI police car? gsaauctions.gov will let you bid on one. As well as a lot of other junk that no other agency wants and has been locked in a big room for a while. Actually the GSA takes really good care of their cars and you can get things like fleet cars that run on natural gas (if you are into that sort of thing.) You can also get all sorts of used computer and maybe nasa junk.
My community college had to get rid of a bunch of Apple 2's, old macs, monitors and whatnot, so they sold it publicly for $2-5 each, they were gone within 3 hours (this was quite a bit of stuff).
Apple will do your education hardware recycling for free... register by june 30th, 2008 here: a href="http://www.apple.com/education/shop/recycle/promo/
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
Illinois state law requires that disks be overwritten ten times before they may be scrapped (see Here for the law). Last year the Governor entered into a no-bid contract with a firm to scrub drives (also refurbish and sell) used electronics after a report found that almost no drives were being overwritten by many state agencies. See this pdf for more details.
If people can connect to one another even the smallest of voices will grow loud.
--Serial Experiments Lain
I know a guy in the electronics recycling industry. You may have been told that they're thrown away, but in reality most of them aren't.
:) That's where I got my first 20" monitor. The thing was huge, and weighed at least 150 pounds, but it was better than the 14" monitors everyone else was using at the time. You can get pallets of used PC's, monitors, etc., at these auctions, so if you go, bring a truck.
Usually the hard drives either have to be wiped, or destroyed. The rest of the machine is up for grabs.
In their case, they take the decent machines (including older ones like P2's), refurbish them, and sell them.
The broken, or too old, equipment, they break down in special equipment that separates the various materials (plastic, glass, metals) for reprocessing. Different places handle different equipment, so they ship truck fulls of various materials to different places. For example, one place only deals with the metals. The metal place has more special equipment that sorts the precious metals out, so they can sell it at market value. It's not worth it for you or I to break down a computer for the precious metals, but when you may be processing 10,000 junked PC's, the profit margin goes way up.
I've also been to auction houses that specialize in government and educational facilities. It's stuff the schools don't want any more, but I was more than happy to get.
I'm sure some places occasionally throw stuff away, but they're in violation of a stack of laws. They *MUST* dispose of hazardous waste (computers fall in that category now) properly. Since most places like schools have to keep inventory and know what moves where, they're also required to show that it was disposed of properly.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
FreeGeek is a 801.c.3 Nonprofit that accepts used computers and installs linux on them for use by disadvantaged communities. They also recycle computer waste that they can't use. They used to be only in Portland OR, but they're all over the place now. The one in Chicago is located at 3411 W. Diversey.
UW of Madison has it right. Its called SWAP (Surplus With A Purpose).
UW SWAP
Basically they made a business out of recycling their hardware. The UW has a relatively short cycle for rotating out their computers so this makes them resalable for a decent price.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
Bottom line, the rules are supposed to stop the possibility of equipment purchased with state funds getting into the hands of the private or for-profit sectors. The current system doesn't really stop this. It just makes it so it's really really hard to get away with it, should the DA or curious investigative reporter who puts in the time to make FOIA/Public Info requests starts digging. So sending the equipment to a state licensed facility (hey, the school board chairman's uncle happens to be licensed!) means that there's a paper trail. But really, anything that won't get you in the newspaper works. Donating the equipment to a non-profit or another state funded entity, or an auction that's carefully documented and where the winning criteria are totally objective is not going to run afoul of the state laws, but many school administrators don't even want to do anything other than send the old stuff to a licensed recycle facility. Often for a low low disposal fee.
Send 'em out to the third world, now the OLPC has XP on it, they are gonna need some beefier hardware to run all those XP licenses they bought.
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
Can't forget the acetylene torch.
This is pretty common. I know NJ has this as well.
There is a reason. They don't want a school to buy expensive electronics, say it's "outdated" or "broken" and sell/donate it somewhere... to someone who resells it for profit, and everyone splits the income.
Once hardware is donated once or twice it's nearly impossible to track. There's a lot of room for abuse.
I agree it's immensely wasteful... but how else do you prevent computers from being incorrectly disposed of for personal gain?
Even if you require it to be 5 years old before it can be disposed of... someone will still manage to sell of parts for personal gain. That's money that really belongs to the state, and the taxpayers who get raped as is.
Sucks no matter what.
They let us tear apart older computers for a technology class to learn how they work... but couldn't give them away to lower income homes. There were literally giant closets filled floor to ceiling with old CPU's. To expensive to dispose of, to useless to do anything with... so they sat in storage.
The only problem I see is that the school isn't leasing their computers in the first place.
I work at a Texas Univ. and thats exactly what we do.. we shuffle them around, older machines ending up as student worker PC's, and eventually they get "surplused" where the hard drives are taken out and destroyed, then the PC's and periphs are sold at Univ. auction.
I worked for the ITS dept at an Ontario college - they would smash the old systems before throwing them in the dumpster. Apparently they once left some sensitive info on a HDD and it came back to haunt them. I offered my own time to clean up the PCs and give them to a needy school. They wouldn't change their policy so I called the boss an idiot - didn't work there for much longer
I work for a city entity in California, and my coworkers and I frequently lament the terrible way disposal of equipment is done. Sometimes good equipment that is retired sits around until it is so old it's ready for the museum (I just tossed a few 386 PC's with 20MB drives!). Other times, we have equipment retired that has basically never been used. There are so many good things to do with this stuff, but the problem boils down to the taxpayers. They come after the City every once in a while and want to know exactly what we've done with stuff. Some taxpayers want it donated, some want it sold. But if we give it away, the ones who want it sold will have a fit, because maybe we could have made a little money and taxed them less. If we sell it, the ones who want it donated gripe that it wouldn't have cost us anything to give it to someone who needs it. As a City, we are accountable to the taxpayers, and it is impossible to satisfy them all. So the process is largely undocumented, undecided, and mired in politics.