Not all countries allow this type of tax break, infact in some countries as a non-profit you don't pay tax and not getting any profit means you don't get money to buy new HDDs. Thus the need to be able to securely wipe any sensitive information on the machines that are donated to you.

I read that most IT computers recycled in the US are sent to South America. The majority are refurbished and resold.

Or better yet, try this piece of hardware to permanently erase data from an old hard drive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDa8kPPsec4
This is guaranteed to work!!

I'm sorry I don't understand that. I was referring to profit making companies giving machines away free to charities. If you are a profit making company then wiping a hard disk drive will cost you money I know not all countries are the same but in the UK it seems that having a PC wiped costs a similar amount to the PC is worth. So to give away a PC and wipe the disk can cost you money, but to give it away and remove the disk does not. So instead of paying money to wipe the disk I am suggesting paying money for a very cheap new disk. You're still giving the same amount to charity and can write that off against tax if your country allows it.

Perhaps I have been mislead but I've seen mention in a few places that to extract the gold and other rare metals is not economically viable unless you do it by hand with very cheap labour. The cases may be worth a few dollars though as may the cabling.
If I have been. islead I'd be happy for somebody to correct me as it would make me feel better about recycling PCs for scrap.

Well I don't know about OneBuck but I'm not a for-profit company and I don't charge the business' who give me PCs to wipe the hard drives. They give me machines on a good faith basis. No one makes money from what I do so no one gets any tax breaks.

Sounds like you're a decent citizen .
I think we were talking at cross purposes a little as I was meaning more that when large corporations want to give PCs to charity they typically would pay to have them cleaned for regulatory reasons so it would be as cheap to remove the drives and buy new ones -- the tax break being that buying new hard drives to give to charity could be almost paid for by tax breaks.
For people like yourself what I posted isn't really relevant and it's to be hoped that people who do similar work are as knowledgeable as OneBuck and you.

Every so often, I see someone with a machine that turns a hard disk into pellets. This stage doesn't need much labour, as you just load the drives into a hopper, and the machine gets quite physical with them. I've always assumed that the pelletised materials then go off to re-cycling, but I have to admit that I've never been interested enough to find out what happens at this next stage.

I suspect if it's a steel-plattered drive the pellets are, indeed, recycled as iron or steel. I've been lead to believe that the tantalum in the capacitors, for example, is wasted.
I am hoping that somebody will come along and tell me I'm wrong because I like the idea of recycling.

Not sure about that lol, it seems I'm a right royal pain in the @$$.

It seems we are talking a cross purpose, I stuck with the "little man" scenario (like myself and I assume OneBuck as well) not the big business scenario.

We kind of need to point out that a hammer or thermite or a 7.62 NATO round could expose users to a few hazards. Some of the metals in a hard drive are very toxic and should not be broken where they can't be recovered.

All the scrap metal places here offer money per pound for old systems. I kind of doubt they could ship them very far at the cost of transportation but I agree that some places in India have superfund sites that may not be safe for a few thousand years.

I really have no choice in the disposal. It is either dump it illegally or recycle it. I'd prefer not to get fined by EPA and the county/state.

Hi,

At one point in time I would service hundreds of recycled machines (pallets of good serviceable machines). One man operation and very time intensive, profit was in providing a usable machine for someone who was unable to afford a machine, never paid myself for the service.

My line is several benches setup to do this type of service. Word of mouth would provide client service requests that did help pay to continue the operation. My only thing was in satisfaction of providing the machines thus giving back to the community since I have earned a lot and garnished much from society/community overall. Personal satisfaction by providing something to a person that otherwise would not have it.

As to the disposal of media, my re-cycler does have a banger. Nothing more than a small hammer mill that is bin fed that then provides material to a shredder. Ingenuity! Not pelleted but left to the wholesale grader for separation. One recycle center does separation/grading but to far from me to justify disposal there.

BTW, most platters are either aluminum (alloy), ceramic or a form of glass. Steel properties are not good for spinning magnetic disks. Recoverable materials are there but bulk, minimum physical work(low labor costs) and automation are the words for profit in this industry. Yes, you can recover gold, silver and other elements when done correctly. Not something you would do in your garage.

I have seen my share of HD that have personal data intact. In the wrong hands the data could have created issues for the original owner. Most corporate disposal do clean their disks while others will destroy the disk to be sure that everything has been secured. I've never had a issue with getting HD for re-cycle machines. Upgrades by clients and other providers were a good source for usable HD.

Fun work, personal satisfaction and that's all!

With the potential inability to wipe sensitive data and the supposed shorter use cycles of SSDs due to wearing out of sectors do you think that in future it will be more difficult to get hold of second-hand corporate machines with storage for your kind of recycling?

Hi,

Life cycles for modern 'SSD' are much greater than first generation. Plus with SSD the density is getting greater at lower cost/GB along with speed/access.

I really think that RAM disks will be a good alternative from a size standpoint along with RAM costs getting competitive again. Many corporate systems are going back to the way of server-client to minimize the hardware requirements so the availability of useable mechanical drives will dwindle and the use of SSD or RAM disks will suffice.

We still have the retirements for mechanical SATA drives but that too will dry up in time.

The issue is some ability to get enough data out of a blocked ssd to be of any use.

At one high end company I worked at the disposal process was a two step contract. We contracted one company to demolish the devices to a set size or less. Then they would send that to a recycle plant.