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Dell Launches Free PC Recycling

Posted by Zonk on Fri Sep 29, 2006 08:49 PM
from the there-should-be-free-as-in-beer-recycling dept.
Hardware Technology
digihome writes to mention the implementation of a free PC recycling service for all systems sold by the company. From the article: "The no-charge home pickup program was announced in June. Dell already offers similar programs in Europe and Canada. After enduring tough criticism over the years from environmental groups, tech companies have started offering more ways for consumers to properly dispose of computer gadgets and to conserve electricity while using computer gear. Among tech companies, environmental advocacy group Greenpeace has singled out Dell and mobile-phone maker Nokia for their ecologically conscientious policies."
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  • It may be a better offer if you could include computers from any source, not just dell, right?

    -r

    • Re:Recycle... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ergo98 (9391) on Friday September 29 2006, @08:53PM (#16254969) Homepage Journal
      It may be a better offer if you could include computers from any source, not just dell, right?

      Good point. And while they're at it, I have an old futon that the cat pissed on that I've been looking to dump, so maybe they can take that too.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Timesprout (579035)
      Why should Dell pay to recycle their competitors products?

    • Re:Recycle... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ben there... (946946) on Friday September 29 2006, @09:41PM (#16255235) Journal
      It may be a better offer if you could include computers from any source, not just dell, right?

      They will, as part of a new purchase. That was their old recycling program, and it's still in effect. The new program adds recycling of Dell products at any time.

      You have to have *something* to do with Dell before they'll ship your junk for free.
      • I've always meant to put up fliers around town: "Such and Such Budget PC Disposal" Hauling fees as low as $4.99! Just to see how many perfectly salvagable boxes I could get.

      • Re:Recycle... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by irc.goatse.cx troll (593289) on Friday September 29 2006, @09:09PM (#16255065) Journal
        Because its downright silly to have 3 big trucks drive by to pick up 2 computers and a printer in the name of "envrionmental cleanliness"?
        If anything the big names should all pitch in and form a collaborative group.

        • My favorite is those billboard trucks driving around. I know it takes energy to put up a static billboard, but something about driving around burning gas and increasing traffic just to wave a sign sickens me.

          • Getting off topic, of course, but:

            Actually, in a lot of places, companies turn to billboard trucks because the local zoning laws in some way prevent them from advertising their business. One community near me had a controversy recently: a store owner wanted a bigger sign than the (unusually restrictive) zoning laws there allowed, and so he bought a billboard truck and parked it (legally) on the street in front of his business. They wanted to pass an ordinance forbidding billboard trucks from the municipa
        • "Because its downright silly to have 3 big trucks drive by to pick up 2 computers and a printer in the name of "envrionmental cleanliness"?
          If anything the big names should all pitch in and form a collaborative group."

          Agreed. Before curbside recycling was common, there were places in my town where everyone took all the cans, bottles, and batteries for recycling. We still have something similar for oil, paint, and other nasty stuff. Why not do something similar for computers-just let everyone drop them off at
        • What shall we call this collaborative group that deals with old crappy computers? Ah, I got it, e-machines.
  • Yes Sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie... It was me that put that post-it note saying "Works fine, Free CRT" on the CRT someone else left on the curb there.

    So we'll sing it again [slashdot.org] the next time it comes 'round on the guitar.

    • And if 50 people, I say 50 people a day come in recyclin' monitors, they might think it's a movement!

      And most of them would be too young to know what a movement is...

  • Metal, after oil, is our least renewable resource. Given that computers use more metal than any other consumer product it makes economic sense (or is that cents!) to reclaim it.

    Another useful component is the rare-earth magnets that are in hard drives. Those are pricey and certainly outlast the drives they come in.

    • Wow, man, your mainframe has more metal than your SUV?
    • Metal, after oil, is our least renewable resource
      It depends which metal you're talking about... Most elements are metals, and they're more or less abundant ("renewable")
    • Metal, after oil, is our least renewable resource.

      Metal, however, DOESN'T GO ANYWHERE. It can be lost to rust, but that's only a small percentage over a long period of time. 500 years from now, we can mine our junkyards, and get practically all of it back for future use.

      Oil, OTOH, is burned, and turned into a completely useless form, that won't turn back into oil for millions of years.
      • "500 years from now, we can mine our junkyards, and get practically all of it back for future use."

        Can we?

        Maybe they will have invented some amazing process which can sort out the rare but extremely useful metals like copper and tungsten which are probably going to be in extremely high demand but are likely to be distributed in extremely minute quantities all around the earth by our extremely naive civilisation.

        Most electronics these days end up in massive municipal landfills, trying to mine them would be l

    • Re:This is fantastic news. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NexFlamma (919608) on Friday September 29 2006, @10:56PM (#16255637) Homepage
      "Given that computers use more metal than any other consumer product"

      You literally pulled this out of your ass, didn't you?

      For a while now, we've had these things called "automobiles". They are generally made up of metals of various sorts. They also weigh 1-2 tons a piece. Unless you're referring to all those consumer grade ENIACs you see everywhere, I'm not sure how you think computers consume the most metal of any consumer product.

  • For non-Dells (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2006, @08:56PM (#16254987)
    For those who don't own a Dell, there is Free Geek [freegeek.org]

  • Does it need to be said? (Score:5, Informative)

    by voice_of_all_reason (926702) on Friday September 29 2006, @08:56PM (#16254993)
    Remove hard drive first, nuke it yourself. Only way to be sure.
    • Secure erase firmware is built into all new drives:
      http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/Hughes/SecureErase.html [ucsd.edu]

      This is suitable for military sanitize up to secret level.
    • The only truly secure computer is one which is switched off and disconnected from the network. ... and smashed with a sledgehammer, to ensure that the computer is never turned on again. ... and set on fire, to the temperature of 600F, which should be sufficient to destroy the magnetic bits in the hard drive. ... and then nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

    • Remove hard drive first, nuke it yourself. Only way to be sure.

      Only way to make sure that nobody could recover your porn or find out that your mail account's password is "password" even by opening your hard drive and looking for data with a gauss-meter or something of this kind?

      Unless you got state secrets on your hard drive and that somebody out there might know it, writing a bunch of 0's once on your hard drive will keep anything you could have on your hard drive safe.

    • Remove hard drive first, nuke it yourself. Only way to be sure.

      How would I go about obtaining a nuke? Should I start collecting smoke detectors?

      I've got a bunch of old hard drives that need the data wiped. Wouldn't it just be simpler to hold it up to a rare-earth magnet [forcefieldmagnets.com]? Would I have to take the cover off?

      Just wondering... :)
  • Great idea. On my way to work in Manhattan, I frequently see PC monitors, CPU's, laser printers, etc, on the curb awaiting pickup. AFAIK, NYC does not have a recyling program for these items. They just get added to a landfill in other states. Any program that recycles all the toxic materials found in PC's and related equipment will potentially save the water supply in areas from leachate contamination, as water percolates through landfills. Way to go, Dell! HP better step up the plate!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by setirw (854029)
      Sure it has a recycling program: I take them!

      I once found a dual PIII Xeon server on the street, with 4gb RAM and 8 10,000 RPM 12gb SCSI drives (wiped, of course). Three 22" ViewSonic flat screen CRTs. A working professional-quality scanner. It is positively ludicrous what New Yorkers throw out.
      • It is positively ludicrous what New Yorkers throw out.

        "Yes officer, that computer was out on the street, just behind that shattered glass window..."

    • Re:Recyling PC's (Score:5, Informative)

      by truthsearch (249536) on Friday September 29 2006, @09:21PM (#16255121) Homepage Journal
      All City agencies, as well as businesses and institutions, are required to recycle computer equipment, unless it is donated or resold for reuse.

      The NYC Department of Sanitation has coordinated with private companies and nonprofit organizations to offer electronics recycling events to New York City residents.

      http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/recyclin g/electronicsrecycling.shtml [nyc.gov]

  • I'd take them too... (Score:4, Funny)

    by NotQuiteReal (608241) on Friday September 29 2006, @09:03PM (#16255033) Journal
    You can put almost anything on eBay and turn a profit - if you charge enough in S&H...

    "Computer for sale: PII 500MHz - doesn't boot. Buy it Now $25!"

    Tell me you can't sell that.

    • Where, where? (Score:5, Funny)

      by HermanAB (661181) on Friday September 29 2006, @09:14PM (#16255079)
      Oooooh, gotta have that. No link to your auction!?
    • Laugh all you want. You think this is outrageous? I've been getting what others would declare as "crap" PCs for a long time. 500, maybe 600 MHz celerons, some with memory, some without, none with hard drives. An old employer would just leave them out for anytone to take, rather than pay to have someone haul it all out. I must have sold over 50 of them over the span of a year, giving them a slight refurbish to the point where they are stable, throw Linux on a measly 4 or 6 GB drive that I bought in lots

    • Tell me you can't sell that.

      Actually you could sell the PSU alone for that price. I once sold a dead 400W ATX PSU for 20

  • Is it just lip-service? (Score:5, Informative)

    by STDOUBT (913577) on Friday September 29 2006, @09:44PM (#16255249)
    Seriously.

    *Most* "recycled" electronics in the US end up in trash heaps in China to be picked through by poor people. Gleaned for valuable metals. In these open-air dumps there are no controls on leaching metals into the soil, etc.

    There are plenty of more responsible efforts throughout the country some of which are listed here:
    http://freegeek.org/recycle.php [freegeek.org]

    Does Dell *really* recycle or just dump the stuff someplace that pays them by the ton? And don't be mislead by Greenpeaces' approval. They score based on production toxicity not recycling cleanliness. Granted Dell's doing "something", but my point is we don't actually know where the boxes end up. TFA didn't say.

  • Funny, I recycle all my old computers. If nobody else will take them, the public schools will, and give me a reciept for a tax writeoff while I am at it.
    • many or most schools and nonproftis these days have minimum requirements of what they will take as a donation.
      • or at least they ought to... those of us who work for nonprofits can tell stories of the total junk that people donate apparently thinking they're being helpful.
        • True, but the first rule is that it works (and all the stuff I donate does) and ask before you donate it. Heck, the last one that went to a school was a 33 mhz 486 over 6 years ago.

          The one I donated this year was a 120 mhz laptop that went to a relative that is using it at college.

          It all comes down to finding the right home for each machine.
  • This is great, but the article doesn't say what the user can recycle. PCs, sure, but what about monitors or laptops?

    In California, we pay an extra $8 when we purchase a monitor (or laptop) to the state for future landfill services. Then when we dump a CRT monitor it's a $20 fee (not sure about laptops or desktops).
  • Your average computer has enough gold and silver in it for a recycler to churn a rather high profit melting them down.

    I remember seeing shows on it in the late 90's.. the average high end CE device (e.g. computer) can be melted down to produce several grams of gold and several oz of silver.

    This of course ignores the huge amount of silicon, plastics, and of course aluminum (aluminum is far cheaper to recycle than to smelt as the only known process involves VAST amounts of electricity) which makes up the rest
    • yes, this show you watched back in the late 90's, back then it was probably much easier to make a profit in electronics recycling.

      back then pentium 1 and pre-pentium 1 boards and cpus had a much higher gold content, but afterwards manufacturers cut back drastically on their use of valuable metals to cut costs.

      these days, when most of what a recycler gets is p2 and p3-era machines, and busted monitors (not worth much of anything), they are not as valuable component-wise.

      so no, most recyclers do not "churn a
  • Heres the life cycle of a PC in my household
    Buy the PC from Gateway and get the latest and greatest
    This Machine is the primary PC for me for the next 18 months.
    After that it becomes the secondary PC. It is moved to the guest room.
    After a year and a half there it is moved to the garage where it runs MAME in my arcade cabinent.

    After a while in the garage it is given to my daughter or my mother where they use it for another two years as their primary PC. After that it goes on the trading post and is sold to

  • if near silicon valley, please consider.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by reflector (62643) on Friday September 29 2006, @10:40PM (#16255543)
    if you are in the silicon valley area, please consider ELMARS.ORG, we offer free electronics recycling (drop off at our Fremont warehouse just off I-880), and also offer free pick-up at your location for medium to large quantities.

    we are a non-profit california state-certified e-waste collector (one of the few that are state certified), and will give you a 501 c(3) tax-deductible receipt for all electronics that you give us, as well.
    help the environment and help your pocketbook, too :)

    see us at www.elmars.org for more info.

    thanks!

    • Couple of questions:

      1) Do you simply recondition the equipment and donate it to others, or do you physically break down non-working equipment in an environmentally friendly manner?
      2) Is all demanufacturing done locally? Or is some/all of it sent overseas?

      Please take these as just curious questions, and in no way a negative light.

      -b

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by reflector (62643)
        hi, thanks for the interest.

        working hardware or hardware that we can fix up easily (put a new hard drive in, etc) gets either donated or sold to fund our existing operations.

        non-working and obsolete stuff gets seperated into components (plastics, steel (cases), circuit boards, wires, etc).

        we work with local refineries that will melt down boards and metals, everything is done locally, not overseas.

  • Some of this recyling program is already in place:

    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/09/computer_r ecycl.php [treehugger.com]

    I've helped to puchase several Dells in the last few years. They have always offered to recycle my old computer for free, regardless of the brand.

    They send a shipping label along with the new computer, and you ship it back to them in the same delivery box. Easy as pie, and I'm assuming they have facilities to deal with the extra styrofoam.

    This is in California, so perhaps we had this system in place

  • Also offering free laptop incineration... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ortcutt (711694) on Friday September 29 2006, @11:53PM (#16255855)
    in partnership with Sony. That's really the solution for E-waste, computers which self-destruct.

  • Greens on target, yet again... (Score:4, Informative)

    by scdeimos (632778) on Saturday September 30 2006, @12:47AM (#16256101)
    After enduring tough criticism over the years from environmental groups, tech companies have started offering more ways for consumers to properly dispose of computer gadgets and to conserve electricity while using computer gear.
    Good grief, you'd think they'd go after TV and monitor manufacturers, too. A lot of CRT-based TV's and monitors have a "standby" mode that draws almost as much power as full-on. These things are on all the time, whereas a lot of computers are only on when in-use. I expect a lot more people have TV's than computers, too.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Dell DOES pick up non-dell computers when you purchase a dell... just check the option for "free recycling kit" when you purchase your new dell and you will get a airborne tag to use your dell box to ship your old PC back in... :)

      It is free on most home systems and $10 up to $40 option with some business systems.

      I just used my $40 tag from a server to pack 2 computers, a 14" crt and a ton of old ISA cards all in the Poweredge box.
    • Now, it would be great if they offered to pick up non-Dell computers too when you make a purhase and want to get rid of the old stuff.

      They do. It's part of the old program that has been around a few years. You can still do that. This just adds free recycling of Dell computers with no purchase necessary.

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