You probably know that I have always been a great proponent of donating used computer equipment to charity, and my reasons for that are twofold:
- There are a lot of people who would consider your three year old computers to be a godsend. Charities abound that will give your old hardware to people and organizations that cannot afford a computer on their own; and
- Computers and electronics are a huge environmental problem because of their abundance and relatively short lifecycle.
Recently I was addressing a class and recommended donating old computers and one of my students told me that they could not do that because of EPA guidelines – if the charity then discarded that computer improperly the tags would trace back to them, and would give them a bad name, aside from any possible fines.
So what can you do to safely discard old computers? There are companies that are trained and equipped to disassemble your old systems that will cart them away, render the hard drives unusable, disassemble them into their base components, and recycle any parts that can be recycled. They will also (more importantly to that student) issue you a certificate listing the equipment that was recycled.
In Michigan there is a consulting firm called Harbor Computer Services that has carved a niche in this service – they are an IT consulting firm run by a Microsoft MVP (Amy Babinchak). Amy was previously the director of a local recycling project, and understands the impact that discarded computers have on the environment. So in addition to helping small businesses with their IT needs (they are members of Microsoft's SBSC program) they have a division dedicated to recycling your equipment. The fees are reasonable and include picking it up, removing identifying marks, sorting it, destroying the hard drive, and delivering the components to the local recycling centre. They will then give you a certificate that is accepted by the EPA. All this for a reasonable price that is cheap compared to the impact you are having on the planet. Read more about their recycling services at http://www.harborcomputerservices.net/Recycling.htm.
Your children will thank you, and so will the EPA!