Post by cb meeksPost by Steve NickolasPost by cb meeksYou must live in the land of unicorns and rainbows. Thrift stores in my
area are lucky to have beatup Dell's and broken LCD monitors.
Thrift stores in my area don't "do" computers.
-uso.
In my area, they have FINALLY gotten smart enough to understand that not
all computers have hard drives...and, hard drives can be taken out.
Leaving no trace of the original owner.
Now, my recycle center isn't so smart. Even when I offer them more
money for a computer that is being recycled than they get from the
smelters, they won't sell. Because all computers are "hard drives" and
"hard drives" contain social security numbers.
/sigh.
A few years ago in sci.electronics.repair we were talking about ewaste
recycling, and someone suggested it's all deliberate, to keep things out
of second hand use.
I hadn't thought of it that way before that, but it makes sense. If I can
get a GPS receiver for five or ten dollars, then I'm not going to buy a
new one. Other than a netbook and a tablet, I've not bought a new
computer since 1989 (the clearance Atari ST that was always flakey). So
I'm not a "good consumer".
IN this province, we have an "eco" surcharge on electronics, it doesn't
fully make sense since it varies with the item, and an monitor fee is
higher than a computer fee, I suspect left over from the days of CRT
monitors which were a burden. But it's not a deposit, it's just a few
that is used to deal with ewaste.
But they run ads, talking about "that old stereo" or whatever, telling us
the proper thing is to take it to ewaste recycling. No word about
reusing. Most people don't know much about technology, they let someone
else define whether something is "obsolete" or not, and now know that they
shouldn't donate it to a rumamge sale (not that those want to fuss with
electonics much anymoer) or sell it at a garage sale, but take it to
ewaste recycling. And I think it's "working", I'm seeing less
electronics waiting for the garbage truck and less electronics being sold
at rummage or garage sales.
I don't trust the "recylcers" to know what might be useful still or not.
I figure they are very broad, maybe noticing things like iPads and maybe
the very latest computers, plucknig those out to be handled, but the rest
valued only for crushing up into raw materials to be reused, the cost of
making components not important, and the cost of smashing it all up to
recover the raw materials not important.
I did get a refurbished i7 two years ago, and I suspect they do a fairly
good job of reburbishing. At $351 Canadian, I ssupect they put in a new
hard drive, things I could have done myself. But while I saved money for
a relatively recent computer (it sold originally in 2011), I did get one
with a parallel port and 2 serial ports, and PS/2 connectors, things I'm
not yet willing to give up, but probably wouldn't find if I bought new.
But there is less differential in price here between refurbished and new,
and buying a used computer at a rummage or garage sale.
Most places wouldn't recognize "antique" electronics. In the nineties I
was able to get some really good stuff, like my IIGS, at school rummage
sales, and interesting shortwave receivers and my HP 4P laser printer for
$15. But for most people, and surely in the ewaste business, it's all
"just old" and not worthy of finding a proper home for it.
Michael