Recycling / throwing away gracefully electronics
Thursday, June 26th, 2008 - 2:29am
I've slowly built up a pile of computer trash. A couple old hard drives, a burnt out power supply, a shelf stereo that no longer works. How do I dispose of these in a manner that's environmentally sound and possibly recycleable. I have no clue.
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They most likely go to hazard waste disposal and recycling, if you've got one in your area. Computers are toxic puppies, no doubt. Just make sure to do an extremely thorough wipe and destruction of the platters in your old HD's if you ever stored anything you wouldn't want public knowledge.
The measure of a man is how truly his actions reflect his own truth - not how well his actions fall into line with what makes others comfortable.
Try freecycling it. www.freecycle.org
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Harddrives...a magnet and a sledgehammer is not a bad idea before you throw it away.
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Forget that, get a grinder and scar the surface of each side, then immerse in water, and allow to rust.
Or, just grind it into metal dust. You can never be too sure.
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My process for hard drives:
1. Remove covers.
2. Set it on the concrete in the driveway and get out the 20 lb. sledge. Hammer away.
3. Build a big fire in the wood burning boiler and toss in the HD.
I'm thinking of adding that grinder thing in there somewhere, or maybe just using the platters for target practice.
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I know that locally we have an annual clean up for electronics. Old CRT Monitors, TVs, PCs, all kinds of stuff like that. They do charge by the total weight of what your dropping off, so it can cost ya. Nothign too crazy, unless you have a 80 lb 20inch CRT monitor to dispose of.
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What, do you guys work for the CIA or something?
There are a couple of places that specialize in getting rid of old computers where I live. I'm sure there are some where you live, too. Just do a google search for computer recycling and your area. If the computers are not too old you may be able to donate them to a school. We have a program here called REACT that takes donated computers that are still viable and fixes them to give to schools. If you buy a dell computer they have a recycling program as well. They'll recycle your old machine for free.
Getting killed, though? In a way that you don't like? Suck it up, Gertrude.
Check with the people who haul away your regular recycling. In Minneapolis, there are a couple of days a year that you can put out electronics with your trash. Any other time and you get a fine. Also check Best Buy, I know they're starting a pilot program to recycle electronic trash for people.
Then it's off to India where children can pick apart the toxic components for the scrap metal.
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Computers go in the regular dump here, monitors though are like TVs and need to be paid extra. But PCs? Just break it up into pieces and chuck it.
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
Oh, by the way, Home Depot just started a recycling service at ALL of their store locations for CFL bulbs. So, if you're looking for a safe way to get rid of your dead CFLs without spreading the mercury, drop them off at Home Depot.
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There's a weekly drop off with the local waste management company here.
Through work, we dropped off a lot of non-functioning computer equipment with the local GoodWill. They have some sort of arrangement with a recycling company that they get paid for the equipment, instead of paying for haul away.
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I think I just saw an article about Best Buy launching a *free* recycling program for electronics.
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As someone who's been bitten by the "Hey look at that somebody else is spending my money!" bug before I tend to go perhaps a bit too far at keeping my private data just that. Private.
I don't even throw away envelopes with my address on them anymore. I burn pretty much all of it.
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I don't imagine master craftsmen leaping away from completed projects and shouting "Done, motherf*ckers! - 1Dgaf
Never been bit by that particular bug but a heavy-duty shredder & outdoor fireplace gets a lot of use all the same. It's only paranoid 'til some dumbster diving jackass decides to go on a shopping spree, and I'd rather avoid the experience all together.
The measure of a man is how truly his actions reflect his own truth - not how well his actions fall into line with what makes others comfortable.
[i]In case it helps, Wired did a blurb for their HowTo wiki entry on recycling electronics a little while ago.
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Seconded on this one. There's a shop here in my town that will take almost anything electronic. You pay a flat fee for monitors and PC cases but everything else is free. They refurbish and sell what they can, and the rest is recycled.
Duoae wrote:
If you have something that is old, but runs sorta, try donating it to freecycle, or to a local linux user group. There are a bunch of grass roots efforts to rescue p2 and p3 era hardware and throw a light Linux distro on it and ship it to the 3rd world.
I found a place that will recycle this stuff. You have to pay them, but they do it. The reason Freecyle or FreeGeek, etc. wouldn't work is because this is hardware that absolutely has failed. I "snap together" my own computers. Have done so for about a decade. So I generally know that if the hardware is bad it's bad. Dead. Memory has been checked under Linux's memcheck software. Hard drives make noise. Stuff like that.
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