Stef Lewandowski
Create something every day

I’ve been getting rid of lots of old computer equipment this week. You know the kind of thing - old bits and bobs that “might come in useful” or computers that “were really good when I got them two years ago and were really expensive but now are worth less than nothing”, like:

• ‘Old’ CTR (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors - remember those big heavy things that we used to have before those sleek flat-screens?
• Computers that are ‘only’ single processor top-of-the-range two years ago Macs, big noisy dual-processor PCs that somehow were really fast when you bought them but now seem to emit creaks and dust whenever you power them up.
• Assorted keyboards and mice that seem to have yellowed with ‘age’ to become a nondescript 80s yellowed beige - I’m sure this is some kind of patented rapid-aging plastic designed to boost sales.
• ‘Floppy’ disks (When were these ever floppy? How were they ever useful?)
• Loads of blank CRs that seem to accumulate in the ‘may be useful one day, not sure what’s on them because nobody took the time to write on the disk’ pile.
• ZIP disks / drives - remember those? I think they were useful for about six months in 1999
• Random cables for things that have been lost long ago, but have remained in a cupboard for years because (sorry for repetition) they might one day ‘come in useful’ - ten kettle leads? SCSI cables? Random phone cables? The power supply to some random bit of kit you bought years ago and probably threw away because you forgot where the self-same power cable was and just bought a new and improved version?
• DVD players that cost a ridiculous amount of money when they came out and can now be out-performed by something that costs £15 at Argos.
• And so on..

So if you’re like me, once in a while it’s just nice to have shot of all of this random backlog of stored technology - particularly if you’re in the middle of selling a property, reorganising your working environment and making room for all of the Christmas presents a certain little someone seemed to generate recently!

So rather than just dump them, I thought “how about recycling?”

Firing up Google, I get some pretty positive results.

Birmingham has a number of Household Recycling Centres where they take electrical equipment. The thing is that when you actually get there, this entirely consists of a big skip with electrical items in it that get damaged, and probably irreparably broken when they are thrown in.

How to recycle your old computer equipment ethically

For computer kit in serviceable, mostly-working or needs-a-bit-of-a-repair condition this just seems a bit wasteful.

So doing some more searching found me a non-profit organisation called Crash-IT based in Bartley Green, South Birmingham.

They have a very simple offering - recycle your old computers and help other people in the process.

They take old, working/bit-of-a-repair-job computers anywhere from a Pentium 1 / Mac cabable of OS9 upwards, refurbish them and donate them to disabled people or those with medical conditions.

They don’t just take the whole computer - they will accept monitors, keyboards, cables and so on - in fact anything that may be useful in making up computers to order for the people they work with.

‘Useful one day’ to ‘useful today’

I turned up with a load of my ‘useful’ gear and actually found that for once it actually did become useful! Keyboards, monitors, mice, cables, old computer disks - they thought that the stuff I had lying around was great!

What they’re also really interested in is old software installation disks with legal license keys that can be used to install software on the machines that they pass on - even as far back as Office 97 and Windows 98. So if you have any disks lying around, collect them all up and send them to these people.

Also great is that if you’re worried about your data getting in to the wrong hands, they offer a full data-clean service and I think this is free when you give them a computer (citation needed).

Oh - and because you’re donating the stuff, it’s all free, except for monitors - they have to charge £5 per monitor, although for corporate donations I think there is a processing charge too, but it’s pretty modest.

So - if you’ve got some kit that’s no use to you but might be to someone else, consider making a trip over to Crash-IT. They are based in Bartley Green in South Birmingham and it takes about 15 minutes to get there from the City Centre.

It’s a lot better having your computer equipment reused than having it end up as land-fill in my opinion…

But as always with any clear-out there’s just one bit of kit I didn’t have the heart to throw out - an old Apple Color Classic that I’m thinking about combining with the innards from a Mac Mini and turning it into a mini iTunes jukebox! Here’s one:

Image from gerardvschip

It’s probably one of those things that will never happen, but fun to keep it around even if it just becomes a doorstop!