Office Depot Wants to Recycle Your Old Computer 546
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?"
stuff owns us (Score:5, Interesting)
broken laser Printers, be gone! (Score:4, Interesting)
I have two defunct laser printers, probably at least one dead monitor, and some other misc. stuff to come out of my basement. Stuff that frankly is too expensive to ship to sell on ebay.
A happy customer recommends (Score:5, Interesting)
So the questions flow... (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Monitors! (Score:5, Interesting)
So, this is a free service that is worth $10 or more if you need to get rid of a monitor. Cool.
steveha
Re:stuff owns us (Score:5, Interesting)
I was doing an IP renumbering, and I reset the default route on their web server. I was telnetted in at the time, from another room. "Oops, I just broke the default route and I saved it in the start up file. I need to reset this at the console." The head IT lady goes "What's a console?" I explained it to her. She walked me up to the console, all remaining 50 keys on the keyboard and shattered monitor and everything.
Walked out of there with IIS running her website, lugging the sparc server 20 to the trunk of my car. It was a horrible first experience. I learned that you never get free hardware twice!
*Finally* (Score:3, Interesting)
What do I see while walking to my car this morning? His monitor, lying alone on the sidewalk, the only item left behind after the garbagemen visited.
So, thanks, Office Depot!
P.S. Go Earth.
Re:broken laser Printers, be gone! (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Re:So the questions flow... (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the most ethically run companies (i'm thinking of places like Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, or Canada's Mountain Equipment Co-Operative) still have to run their companies without incurring a loss.
If you take this into consideration, you still realise its a good idea for the Office Depot. It shows that they're creative and listens to the needs of their customers.
Our dump here in Mississauga, Ontario, is free (to encourage recycling and proper disposal of hazardous materials) so i won't need this service. Unfortunately the 21' 200lb Radiation King(tm) went to the dust-bin in the sky a loooong time ago.
Re:Monitors have lead - please recycle (Score:3, Interesting)
Many local governments where I live have zero regulations about proper disposal of large electronics, heavy metal laden motherboards, and leaded glass in crt's and tv's. If anything they have a maximum weight limit which is easily circumvented by some creative crushing and re-partitioning.
My local governement is very anal about their disposal regulations because of having to build a new landfill within the past few years. What's to stop the local Office Depot from taking all the hazardous/heavy/dangerous junk and shipping it one county over where the regulations are non-existent.
Office Depot is trying to cop some good materials in the same way they'll trade a pack of paper for a used ink cartridge. The resale of those cartridges (once discected and reconstructed with knockoff inks/carts) is very lucrative. What's the profit angle on the used computers? There's probably something quite profitable here (beyond just getting people into stores who may be in the market for a new computer).
Re:stuff owns us (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:broken laser Printers, be gone! (Score:4, Interesting)
They've made no formal announcement - they're just leaving it alone, watching (and hoping it will) disappear. Prime, Grade A Mulch, freshly ground.... The problem? They aren't getting rid of it fast enough, despite the fact the roadsites are packed at night & weekends.
Re:stuff owns us (Score:3, Interesting)
We used to have periodic "employee sales", with a token payment ($25, usually) for each machine, but it's been a long time since they let us run one of those.
Re:Monitors have lead - please recycle (Score:2, Interesting)
Same goes for mercury. Where does it come from? How about uranium? The ground? No way... I don't believe it. That horrible, harmful stuff couldn't possibly come from the ground...
Really, I fail to see the environmental impact of this stuff. The only argument I've ever heard is that it pollutes drinking water. Guess what... that's not the environment's problem. That's a HUMAN problem. The grass has no problem using the water and getting rid of the lead. Fish aren't wiped out by mercury in the water, it merely removes the weak. Uranium hardly causes widespread panic by causing green, glowing birds. Nature doesn't give an airborn rodent's posterior about these "pollutants". It's the chemical compounds that we manufacture that cause most of the problems, not the nearly-pure heavy elements.
So while an unbroken CRT is relatively safe to humans, even a broken CRT is relatively safe to the ever-so-beleaguered environment.
Re:stuff owns us (Score:3, Interesting)
But instead of providing them with the cheap fix, you moved them to what is probably a more expensive solution TCO-wise on probably less reliable hardware (especially so given the state of PC hardware vs. Sun hardware 4 years ago). Not sure I agree with your methodology here.
Re:bill? Ahahahaha. (Score:4, Interesting)
Sweeping statements like that are generally wrong.
Corporations are not Borg entities. They are made up of individuals. Sometimes the individuals can successfully push the company into doing some Good Things, and guess what? Those individuals might not be the souless, calculating evil bastards you seem to think they are.
It's true that corporations often do good things that might in some way benefit them. That's called "doing well by doing good" and I don't have a problem with it. You shouldn't, either.
Corporations don't have hearts, and neither do boards or executive officers.
It's healthy to be a bit suspicious of companies; don't accept their press releases without a grain of salt. But you sound like someone who has gone overboard the other way. All corporations are not the same, and everyone who works for a corporation is not necessarily evil.
steveha
Re:stuff owns us (Score:2, Interesting)
I know its only a quote, but thats nonsense. I've had to maintain a dozens of SGI's at work, Onyx 2000s Origin 2/3s, Indys, Octanes.. and you know what?
They break!
And when their service contract expries, they break twice as quick.
I've turned machines off for 3 hours while work was being done to AC or electrical units neerby and turned them back on to find a $10k repair bill awaiting me. Yet, in the same room were old cruddy Gateway PC's running a small terminal server for the SGI or a web server or liscense daemon, that still are running.
Sorry, I just cant believe anyone who really thinks SGI's are reliable, I havent had one yet that is...
Re:Monitors have lead - please recycle (Score:4, Interesting)
Same goes for mercury. Where does it come from? How about uranium? The ground? No way... I don't believe it. That horrible, harmful stuff couldn't possibly come from the ground...
Ok, let me use an analogy that is strangely appropriate for you:
There is probably about 4 pounds of feces in your body. Take it out. Now eat it. Whoa, I bet you don't feel too good. Just because it comes out of your body doesn't mean you can just put it back in without doing some damage.
Additional Tip: If you actually try the above experiment, make sure to record it. Maybe you can sell it to a German video company to pay for your hospital bill.
Data mining anyone??? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I hoarde this crap.. (Score:2, Interesting)
1) Hang old HD up broadside.
2) Hook up old 12v lawn tractor battery to get platters spinning
3) FIRE
4) Watch HD explode at 5400 or 7200 RPM.
I recycle more than they do.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I take in more stuff than they do and I am,
1. disabled
2. working alone
Come on guys, you can do better than that.
My typical daily run (pick up)is 20 laserjets, 4-5 21" CRT's, +/- a dozen PC's, 6-10 injets, and 2-300 lbs of cables and wall-warts.
If I can do it this much by myself and disabled at that, they can do better. And I DO NOT throw ANY of it away, it ALL goes back to someone. A lot of it I simply refurbish and give away or trade away just to keep it from piling up.
shameless plug, http://www.SystemRecycler.com [systemrecycler.com]
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Honesty Works Too (Score:4, Interesting)
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.