What do you do with your old computers/laptops/tablets after getting new one
GeneralThis forum is for non-technical general discussion which can include both Linux and non-Linux topics. Have fun!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
What do you do with your old computers/laptops/tablets after getting new one
Me personally, I will try to sell or give it away to family or friends, but if nobody wants it, then I keep some parts and throw the rest in the trash.
After you get a new whatever, what do you do with the old one?
Keep it
sell it
donate it
keep spare parts or
trash it
I either donate them (rarely--I tend to use stuff, including vehicles, until the wheels fall off) or find some way to recycle them safely. (If the wheels fall off, I try to salvage anything that might be useful, such as HDDs, for spare parts.) Needless to say, I shred the HDDs if I donate them.
In these parts, Good Will regularly runs recycling drives and will take old electronics. Just throwing them in the trash is not really a good idea; electronics are full of heavy metals and other hazardous substances.
I remember hearing on the news they were thinking of passing a law to recycle electronics because landfills are getting to extreme with electronics and such.
Distribution: Debian Sid AMD64, Raspbian Wheezy, various VMs
Posts: 7,680
Rep:
I, too, use things until they break. Then I'll either smash or write over the hard drives and then the machine to the local "tip" where they have an area for recycling electronics.
Still working:
Give them to a relative, for use in the office.
Not working or about to fail:
Take them apart and keep what still works, usually the CPU, RAM, and monitor. The rest is either trashed of recycled depending on what it is and the available services.
I've tried donating, but many agencies don't want them
Last edited by metaschima; 01-05-2014 at 12:13 PM.
I give them to goodwill if they are usable. If they are not working I sell them to recycle places. The prices for recycle are 22 cents a pound. Not much but way better that throwing it in the trash, which is illegal in many areas.
Senior Center, poor kids, make a streaming radio player, make a streaming movie player,
carve up carcass and shelve . I have 2 working spare Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz Socket AM2 CPUs
for when I find people like schizophrenia throwing their desktops in the dumpster.
Distribution: Lubuntu, Raspbian, Openelec, messing with others.
Posts: 143
Rep:
Let me ask, how old is useful? Does it depend on memory or something else?
I still have the first pentium I built, simply because I built it (finished on 9-11). When I was able to get free memory to max it out (256), I did, and considered making it into a Smoothwall, or some other firewall distro.
But at this point, when offered older pc's, I have accepted to bring back up my screw collection, after the container busted open in my truck. (cases have been reused or scrapped and motherboards will get recycled)
Kids like memory keychains and disc platter wind chimes and people are happy to see their data exposed that way.
If I can use them to learn something, I will. Currently though, I have bought and am using more the Raspberry PI's for that reason.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.