The Death of Electronic Surplus (hackaday.com)

szczys writes: For hardware developers, electronic surplus stores feel like being a kid in a candy shop. It's hard to walk down an aisle packed floor to ceiling with bins of seemingly-random components without feeling giddy. The wind down of domestic manufacturing, paired with the rise of online parts retailers (think eBay) has led to the shuttering of most electronic surplus shops. But a few of the best are still around. Brandon Dunson takes us on a nostalgic trip through surplus history and a tour of his local electronic surplus store. He brings it home with the saddest part of the trend: the loss of surplus means a loss of culture. Electronic flea markets and surplus stores are a nexus point of talented and interesting people. As they go, so does the opportunity to interact in person with the gurus of electronic development.

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Interpretation of EPA Rules

[retroworks]

We run an electronics recycling company which is about 20% reuse and 80% scrap recycling. Whenever we set aside vintage and antiques for posterity we face a bickering match with state environmental staff who say we are "speculatively accumulating waste". We show the throughput, that it's 97% of incoming tonnage is either recycled or sold for reuse, but after 15 years the antiques take more floorspace. IBM 85XX PS/2 monochrome CRT monitors, which I was drowning in my first years in business, now sell as collectors items on ebay for $150... my main regret is I didn't "speculatively accumulate" a greater percentage than I did.