There's the avenue of basic capitalism - take it to the nearest pawn shop, or put it up on a site like Craigslist. For the more altruistic or magnanimous of you, a service like Freecycle or a local charity, assuming the equipment in question isn't too out of date, can earn you some good karma (or at least a modest tax deduction). At the other end of the spectrum, BI endorses, facetiously but with great relish, this approach. Obviously, this isn't for everyone, and should be done safely and sanely.

Hold on, someone insists on taking BI's pulse and temperature after making that last remark. Cretins.

However, before you do something far more mundane, like make a beeline for the curb with that old 486 or Apple ][ GS, there are still a couple of things that ought to stop you. First, a rather hefty percentage of computer components shouldn't simply be thrown out, because, due to the semi-exotic materials that go into their construction, they're rather inconveniently considered to be hazardous waste (think about the lead and other heavy metals in an old 17" CRT, for instance). This necessitates taking the unwanted parts to designated recycling centers for, to be indelicate about what happens, turning them into industrial mulch. The upside to this is that much of the valuable material can be extracted, usually by melting and re-refining it, for reuse.

There have been a handful of proposals made that would put the onus for disposal and recycling on the manufacturer, who would, of course, then pass along that cost to the consumer anyways. The underlying logic of motivation here, such as it is, would be that this cost would provide a market incentive to come up with cheaper and easier-to-recycle methods of manufacturing the components, or re-engineering them to be greener in terms of the materials themselves. Not a bad idea, in and of itself, but not necessarily one that will bear a lot of fruit, especially in the short term.

In all probability, a neighborhood computer parts recycling center is going to be your best bet. None of us are fooling anybody with our talk of, "Maybe I'll build a Linux box to be a media server for the house LAN." That rig hasn't been powered up since the turn of the century. Let it go, man.


Rafe Brox spends his days wielding a phone in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. When not causing friends and enemies alike to /facepalm electronically, he can be found extolling the virtues of the weird peripherals in his life, from kettlebells to the Trackman Marble. Those of you wishing to inflict or solicit hardware and gaming geekery in person can catch him volunteering at Dragon*Con. If you also share an unhealthy passion for PC hardware or know a good place he can get help for this addiction, the target coordinates are rafe.brox AT weblogsinc DOT com.