Proper Disposal Of Old PCs? 409
IMNTPC writes "Over the years, I've advanced from a 386DX-33 to a Celeron 1.3 Ghz system. I've slowly been accumulating enough old parts that now I think it's time to start disposing of anything that predates a Pentium 166. Does anyone know of a good place that will properly dispose/recycle of these old parts and PCs for little or no money? So far I've found pcdisposal.com, but anyone know of any others, either online or physical dropoff points in major metropolitan areas?"
Some garbage tips have a place for them. (Score:5, Informative)
There seem to be many places that will take ancient working machinery too, and use it as donation equipment - for some people, a simple 386 is heaven. In 2001 I helped shuffle some of this stuff around, and for students who had absolutely no access to a computer for doing university work at home, a 386 that could edit text was a godsend. No, it's no use for software development or comp sci courses, but for those students who do only need to type up essays and the like, a simple machine with floppy is well appreciated and more than enough. Not every college course is comp.sci or IT.
Personally, I just get a new one and push the old ones to the side. They seem to become part of the furniture [danamania.com] and I don't notice they're there any more
Google, my friend... google. (Score:2, Informative)
Welll..... (Score:5, Informative)
Depends on where you live (Score:2, Informative)
Here in sunny Minneapolis ther are several places that will take them - my fav charges 10 cents a pound, and then they part them out and have a salvation army type store next door for the parts. I regularly dumb off my old carp, and then go shopping afterward. Managed to get some great deals on stuff and the monitor prices cant be beat -(17" for $20, 19 for $50) all good stuff too
Sera
Advanced Recycling Fee (Score:1, Informative)
But if the device is still working or easily repaired, reuse it rather than recycle it.
The fees (German) [swico.ch]
An english overview over the system [ewaste.ch]
recycle tax (Score:5, Informative)
Check with your state recycling program (Score:4, Informative)
If your state doesn't have one, push your legislators to start one too. Point at Delaware as an example! It beats it ending up in a common landfill without proper handling.
Re:Give them to schools (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Two options (Score:5, Informative)
The value of your old 386, when you donate it, is NOT the $3000 you originally paid for it. The value of your old 386, for tax donation purposes, is what a reasonable person would pay for it on the open market...in otherwords, maybe $20.
This applies to anything you donate that is used, not just computers. If that old junk heap of a vehicle in your front yard would only get $300 if sold, then that is its value for tax donation purposes. Giving it to the Goodwill does not allow you to write off the $17,000 purchase price when it was new. And the fact that organizations give you a blank receipt and allow you to write in your own value does not change tax law.
Will you get caught and busted for overstating the value? Probably not, unless you do it all the time. But still you should be aware of what you are doing when you put it on that tax form.
Usually here I would put the usual IANAL, but this case is different. Besides being a computer programmer, this time of year I also am a paid tax preparer with bookoo training on the subject, and my mommy works for the IRS.
Freegeek in Portland, OR (Score:3, Informative)
They take all kinds of computer equipment. They refurbish what they can and recycle the rest with "responsible vendors" - meaning places that don't just ship it off to China.
Drop-offs are free, except for monitors, which cost $10 because of the difficulty in handling all the metals and toxic materials in monitors.
People can also volunteer there in their different programs and get "free" computers for their work.
Help the Third World (Score:2, Informative)
Dell Recycling (Score:2, Informative)
Furthermore, they have also launched a new Dell Donations program to benefit the National Cristina Foundation [cristina.org]. If you have hardware (ad says 'above Pentium I'--ambiguous as to whether or not your P-166 would be accepted), they'll take it and fix it up for disabled/disadvantaged children and adults.
Instead of forcing you to drive or UPS it to a distribution center or a warehouse, they send an Airborne Express guy out to your house or business to pick it up. I have to admit, I'm rather impressed by this program.
More information available here [dell.com].
Re:Two options (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Valuable metals...? (Score:2, Informative)
Dell Recycling (Score:2, Informative)
Check it out at the Dell [dell.com] site.
I've used this program to recycle a dead 17" monitor, and it worked like a charm.
Re:Schools don't want them (Score:4, Informative)
Licensing problems are only an issue if you insist on running Wintendos. A P100 makes a fine SOHO firewall.. Throw BSD, smoothwall, etc. on it with a spare ethernet card or two and you're flying for DSL/Cable.
They're also fine for all sorts of classroom uses that don't demand heavy computations. This would include things like doing word processing with AbiWord (Not sure about Open Office, though -- haven't tried it)
Not true (Score:2, Informative)
Freecycle (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Give them to schools (Score:5, Informative)
don't underestimate the sidewalk (Score:4, Informative)
I was walking down the street with my gf at the time in Oakland and there were these old 486's and p60's laying around. I busted out the cybertool and started harvesting ethernet cards. People came by with tools who had seen them 15 minutes or so earlier than I did and I started helping them build machines and pick the best parts.
However, you can't just abandon the machines or leave them for the dept of sanitation. The amount of lead and other nasties in computers is environmentally hostile. One thing to do is advertise that you're doing this. I see this on craigslist.org (or any other location based classifieds) a lot. Postings like: "I'm gonna leave this stuff on the corner of this and that at 5pm" are common and get the word out to people who need parts and can't afford them.
After the compu-hyenas have picked the carrion clean you should take responsibility for what's left and decide, based on what's there if you want to recycle or find a place to dump that will do so ethically.
in the San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley area (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Give them to schools (Score:1, Informative)
So get your nice fuzzy feeling unloading shit to your local school. We all know you just did it for a tax deduction anyway, which is why most of the donations come at a certain time of year.
Re:Freegeek in Portland, OR (Score:3, Informative)
Free Geek charges $10 / monitor to cover the cost of shipping them to a recycler that can break them apart safely. People (and businesses) bring in their old systems and leave with a receipt that's of use at tax time. It is up to the donator to estimate the value of his donation.
Free Geek runs three programs that are kind of interesting:
Freak Boxen are currently spec'ed as: 200 - 233 Mhz CPU, 96 Mb ram, 3 - 4 Gb HD, NIC, sound card, modem included, Debian as the OS. Volunteers get a four hour orientation to common home computering under Linux, a working system, and follow-up support.
Here's the link again, in case you missed it in the parent: Free Geek [freegeek.org]
The Build program is a kick. Building systems from salvaged parts gives is giving me a whole different perspective.
The ACCRC in Berkeley (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Dell Recycling (Score:2, Informative)
Anywhoo, I was a little upset about having to pay someone to recycling my old electronics. I guess if you consider the fee as a shipping cost though, it's not so bad. Better than dumping more toxic crap in a hole in the ground too.
Dell (Score:2, Informative)
Dell Recycling [dell.com]
Re:Old run down neighborhoods are great places (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Depends on where you live (Score:3, Informative)
In sunny Minneapolis (Hennepin County), residential recycling pickups take computer gear for free. Monitors, computers, printers, cartons of dead keyboards and power supplies, everything. And if the weather's dry and you set the stuff out a week before recycle day, it will often vanish before the appointed time.
Re:EBAY!!! (Score:4, Informative)
I've sold scsi cards on eBay for a dollar, and broke even on the shipping; and I am happy because I know the part is going to use and not into a land fill.
-Chris
Re:Schools don't want them (Score:5, Informative)
Old PCs also make awesome little servers. Even a family of neophytes with multiple computers could use a shared file space, and us geeks can set up our own file/web/FTP/DNS/DHCP/time/backup/whatever servers. Personally, I have a P166 as a router, a P133 web server, and a P133 backup server. My file server is a Tbird900 only because I use it as a desktop sometimes.
Re:Destruction Fest (Score:3, Informative)
Please, please, please dispose of your monitors properly, if nothing else.
earth911.org (Score:2, Informative)