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  1. #1

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    What do you do with old computer parts?

    I was looking around online for a place locally that takes old computer parts and I couldn't find anything within less than a 30 minute drive. My garbage co doesn't have a rule against electronics, but I would rather be green, and I do have quite a bit store up over the years. So I ask you, the BG community, what do you do with your old crap, and do you have any suggestions for me? For a reference, I have some mobos and various sound and graphics cards, old 14" crappy crt monitor, couple old broken printers, a computer case or two, and probably a few CD roms.

  2. #2
    Hyperion Cross
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    In the UK the high street PC stores normally allows you to take them in.

    Have you tried the high street retailers?

  3. #3

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    If you mean something like Fry's or the equivalent, I don't have anything nearby like that. I have a few mom & pop computer stores but the few I've been in don't take stuff unless it's new enough that they can resell.

  4. #4
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    I'm not sure of the names over there but if it's mostly mom and pop stores then yeh I can see your problem.

    Another good thing to do is to actually ring them and ask if they have a specific bag/dump for bits like this. Where I live there's actually a huge "open" lorry where people can dump all their electronics in where it goes and gets recycled. However, there are also people hanging around too and will try to salvage bits and repair + sell them on. Their gain, I suppose.

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by TheStig View Post
    Another good thing to do is to actually ring them and ask if they have a specific bag/dump for bits like this. Where I live there's actually a huge "open" lorry where people can dump all their electronics in where it goes and gets recycled. However, there are also people hanging around too and will try to salvage bits and repair + sell them on. Their gain, I suppose.
    That's what I was hoping to find around town, someone who salvages bits or w/e. I probably will with some more indepth detective work. I was just wondering if anyone had any outside of the box ideas. What do people salvage off of these things anyways, and then what do they do with those pieces? I'm sure some of the components have to be worth a little bit of money.

  6. #6
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    Most things that people "throw away" aren't truely broken or they have a very minor fault that these (stupid/rich) people can't be bothered to fix and instead will upgrade to the very latest.

    It is possible to fix it, clean it and then sell it off as refurbished cheaply, it'll be some change for these sellers. And generally people who salvage these bits know what they're doing so the trade off for their efforts to the gain can be quite large.

    Another thing might be the small parts can be used for something else, or for the metal. For example while I was in Norway recycling is a huge thing over there, especially for bottles/cans (most common). There would be these conveyor belts in the supermarkets there, that looks like an ATM, think of as like this:

    --- <-- Wall/Machine
    U <- Conveyor Belt that comes out and back in

    You place the bottles on the belt, the machine counts then and generates a receipt for you which tell you the amount you "earned" for recycling which can be taken off your shopping bill.

    I don't remember the exact price but a good guide is £0.10/$0.15 (roughly, maybe slightly less) per bottle/item recycled and you can see people on the streets salvaging such bottles.

    That's just an example, but maybe these recycling people/companies actually give an incentive to get people to recycle.

    Side note also, the salvagers could be people looking to get working parts together and send them off to the poorer countries.

  7. #7

    Staples.com | Staples Soul - Recycling
    All brands are accepted, regardless of whether or not the equipment was purchased at Staples. A recycling fee of $10 per piece of large equipment is charged to cover handling, transport, product disassembly and recycling. Smaller computer peripherals such as keyboards, mice, and speakers are accepted at no charge.
    considering the size of your recycling effort this is probably the cheapest you're going to find if the computer is no longer in a functioning state. on the other hand, you may consider calling your local school district and see if they would be willing to accept it. many schools have a computer budget thinner than McCain's hairline, so i'd be surprised if you can't get a bite or two if it's a reasonably recent machine. libraries too, would be a good place to see about donating your old machine. finally, if your computer is recent enough to have some value, you might try selling it on ebay, but with the surplus of cheap crap on there, it may not be worth the trouble.

    as for recycling for profit, odds on the recycling shops would take the metal from you and charge a disposal fee. i went through this with my company and we attempted to sell off the cases only to get turned around and sent back w/ our stuff still in hand.

  8. #8
    My Little Ixion
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    Heh... my old machine has become a testing box for me. I'm using it to learn how to better work within a Linux environment. Parts that I don't plan to use anymore end up on Ebay/Craiglist or get recycled.

  9. #9

    I used to work in a computer recycling facility; if you do take your computer parts to be recycled, make absolutely sure it's actually getting recycled and not dumped in some third world country. Usual signs it actually gets recycled is if they do on site disassembling or ship to somewhere that does.

  10. #10
    Salvage Bans
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    i put a ad up in craig's list under free stuff, its typically gone within 30m to a hour

  11. #11
    Pandemonium
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    Quote Originally Posted by levish View Post
    i put a ad up in craig's list under free stuff, its typically gone within 30m to a hour
    This is actually not a bad suggestion, so long as you live in an accessible area. Since you mentioned there's nothing around you but mom and pop stores, though, I don't know how close to a city you are.

    Unfortunately, I don't know how useful this will be to you either, but maybe you'll find something helpful here:

    Where Can I Donate or Recycle My Old Computer and Other Electronic Products? | eCycling | US EPA

    As for me personally, I normally give old parts to friends (a lot of them still have fairly outdated machines), or recycle them locally.

  12. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kohan View Post
    Unfortunately, I don't know how useful this will be to you either, but maybe you'll find something helpful here:

    Where Can I Donate or Recycle My Old Computer and Other Electronic Products? | eCycling | US EPA

    As for me personally, I normally give old parts to friends (a lot of them still have fairly outdated machines), or recycle them locally.
    Closest spot searching on that was 40 miles away. [rant]God I want to move. Sucks living here. The county has 400k residents and almost nothing is 24/7. City and County is run by people in the pocket of the rich Horse Farm owners in the area and they are pretty much screwing this place over. [/rant]

    But as for these computer parts, I guess I'll have to sort them out and see what still might be useful and put them on craigslist. Some of this crap is literally 10+ years old. 28.8k modem anyone?

  13. #13
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    Most companies that take in recycles do a few things;

    • Remove working components for resale
    • Recycle non-working and unsaleable pieces in green ways (very rare)
    • Pay/get payed (depending on the items) to ship it to China where poor workers use chemicals like cyanide to remove the gold and copper contacts. (most common)

  14. #14

    HardOCP forums used to have a section for selling old parts. I remember browsing through it when I was looking at upgrading my computer (hoping to find cheap parts) and saw people looking for all sorts of things like Pentium IIIs. And this was less than two years ago.

    It looks like they've changed things a bit though. I don't see as many old parts hunts, but somebody might be interested in buying stuff for a few dollars + S/H.
    For Sale / Trade - [H]ard|Forum

    Edit: Woah, did firefox get more awesome or did the forums get more awesome? I only copy/pasted the URL and it added the neat little "For Sale / Trade - [H]ard|Forum" on its own.

  15. #15
    Relic Shield
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    I've kept most of my old PC parts and plan to build a second PC. Only thing I'm missing now is a new case, lol.

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