Recycling

Written: January 16, 2004
Last Updated: January 23, 2004

It's time to retire some of my old computers.

Where do old computers go when they have outlived their usefulness? Are they relegated to our garages' dusty corners? Are they left by the side of the road for others to pick up and scavenge? Are they shipped over to China, India, or Pakistan, where they end up polluting the waterways and residing in huge e-waste sites? Or, do they reach recycled computer nirvana, where they "renewed" and reborn as new computer parts?

Apple has a recycling facility in Cupertino where residents can recycle their old "computer components and peripherals, fax machines, VCR's, stereo equipment, home copies, and DVD players." For some reason, they don't take TV's nor monitors with cracked glass.

I got a Power Computing PowerTower Pro (a Mac clone) at the end of my senior year in college. At the time, it was the ultimate machine, fast, expandable, and cheap. Like most computers, it served me well for several years -- I wrote many of my Newton applications on it -- before I gave it to my sister when I bought a PowerBook. The tower was returned to me about a year ago, and it's been hiding underneath a desk this entire time. I did try to boot it up one day, but nothing happened. The old workhorse had finally breathed its last breath.

I tend to keep a lot of my old technology instead of recycling it or selling it on eBay. For instance, I have this box that contains several Palm organizers, Newton handhelds, a Blackberry, and various handheld peripherals. I know that I'm never going to use them again, yet I continue to hold onto them. Why is that? There's the history between these pieces of technology that I can't easily let go. Although they are (and were) just tools, I tended to ascribe more significance to them. There was a shared history between these devices; letting go of them would have been like letting go a piece of my history, of me, with them.

With the PowerTower Pro gone, however, I realize that I don't miss it that much. Once you get over that hump, letting go becomes much, much easier. As Felix says, it's time to simplify my life once again!


Apple's Recycling Facility	But where do these computers go?	Goodbye, Power Tower Pro

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Reader Comments

Can I take my friend's copy of iPhoto to the recycling bin, too?

--posted by echeng @ Monday, January 26 2004, 4:31 am EST

Great site, in answer to the recycling issues, the reason why no recycling facility takes cracked or broken monitors is contained within the CRT tube itself. Heavy metals which have been eith federally and/or in the State of California designated as hazardous waste. A cracked tube means the recycle facilty must then initiate procedures to "clean up" the "spill." This is expensive and truly inane, solder and the components and dust generally doesn't migrate out of the tube however, the regulations contained in CCR Title 22 and elsewhere dictate such action.
In terms of recycling, little is actually recycled other then the steel. Computers generally are crushed and sorted using various means, the rest is buried in states where it is a "designated" waste. Monitors are likewise crushed, liberating lots of heavy metal dusts, the area becoming an issue with the local health departments. The remains are then trucked to states like Nevada and Texas where they are landfilled with other wastes. For a while there, trials were going on to co-generate energy burning the circuit boards but that was dropped due to air emmisions.
So there you go, ask and you get an answer.

--posted by Mike and Rikki @ Friday, February 20 2004, 13:52 pm EST

http://www.cascade-assets.com/

http://www.cascade-assets.com/

--posted by Joe Public @ Saturday, March 19 2005, 12:44 pm PST