Obsolete electronics becoming hazardous waste

[Miulang]

Maybe it's not so important to always have the latest, greatest computer or TV because there's no place to put the castoff equipment (http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050724/NEWS01/507240357/1001) except in some corner of your house. Because of the components in CRTs and TVs which are hazardous, a lot of times you can't even GIVE away your old equipment! (Places like the Salvation Army won't accept CRTs or TVs partly because of this). And up here, it's illegal to put your old equipment in the landfill.

Hawai'i hasn't yet made it illegal to dump your computer equipment in the garbage, but I think that a law will be in place soon. I'm sure the citizens of Kapolei wouldn't want to have the landfill in their neighborhood be the source of birth defects for their progeny.

Miulang

[craigwatanabe]

There's a place here in Hilo that takes in old computers for recycling and ships them up to Oregon. One day I went down there because I needed some cables for an old P3 computer I was ressurecting from the dead to give to a needy family. I was amazed when I spotted pallet after pallet being loaded into a Matson container for shipment to the mainland.

I went inside the building where they were palletizing more old computers an asked if I could take a couple of em for parts. As it turns out the two computers I picked were in better shape than the one I was rebuilding and out of the three I was able to make one decent P3 computer.

With freeware and open source software I was able to give this family a fully functional computer running a Linux based operating system called Knoppix, www.knoppix.org and installed freeware called Open Office from www.openoffice.org

For the Knoppix webpage (it's written in German) click onto the US/British flag for the english version.

Now this family can surf the web in a "Windows" look and feel OS and an office suite that mimmicks MS Office 2003. Because both programs aren't memory or processor hogs, the P3 ran them very well to the point where I couldn't imagine why in the world anyone would throw out perfectly good computers.

I'm currently rebuilding two more P3's and am planning on giving them away too. There's practical life in these old computers and just because it can't run the latest Microsoft family of products that doesn't mean it can't run everything else.

[shaveice]

hi craig, what you say is true though i'm sure you know that most of us don't have your skills (wish i did, though). anyway, i've got an "old" dell that's about 3 years old and i bet i wouldn't get more than $200 for it even though it's still perfectly fine. a lot of people clearly want the latest and greatest even though they don't need it :confused:

what you did is cool. do you know if there's a place like that on oahu? by the way, open office is terrific. if anyone out there doesn't wanna shell out money for ms office, try open office. it's totally free and constantly being improved.

[Miulang]

From the story in the Advertiser yesterday:
E-WASTE RECYCLING SCHEDULE


The City and County of Honolulu holds twice-yearly Computer Drop-Off events in partnership with CompUSA and Hawai'i Computers for Kids. Next date: to be announced; call 692-5410.Maui County's CompuSwap is run by the Community Work Day program. Call (808) 877-2524.

Hawai'i County's CompuCycle program is held once yearly in Hilo and Kona, with the next event, sponsored by Community Technology Center Hawai'i and Recycle Hawai'i, scheduled for November; call (808) 961-2676 or (808) 329-2886.

Kaua'i County's recycling program is not accepting computers at this time; call (808) 241-6891 or e-mail afraley@kauai .hawaii.gov.
E-waste refurbishers/ recyclers

Lenox Metals in Kapolei offers computer recycling for a fee, depending on market availability; call 682-5539.

Island Recycling handles computers for a fee, but has halted the service while it relocates; call 845-1188.

Hawai'i Computers for Kids, coordinated by the Honolulu Metro Rotary Club, recycles computers for classrooms and nonprofit organizations. The program accepts only Pentium III and above models; call Ken Goldstein at 521-2259.

Hawai'i Open Source Education Foundation provides refurbished computers to schools and other nonprofits; call 689-6518 or check www.hosef.org.
On the Web:
For O'ahu recycling: www.opala.org
For Big Island recycling: www.recyclehawaii.org
For Maui recycling: www.co.maui.hi.us/depart ments/Public/recycle.htm
For Kaua'i recycling: www.kauai.gov/Default.aspx? tabid=68
For more on "e-cycling": www.epa.gov/epaoswer/haz waste/recycle/ecycling/index .htm

Miulang

[pzarquon]

HOSEF does great work, but they're always strapped for resources. Not so much money, but primarily storage, meeting and workspace, and of course, labor. If you've a warehouse sitting idle or hands itching to get into some dusty cases, be sure to look them up!

[pinakboy]

There's a place here in Hilo that takes in old computers for recycling and ships them up to Oregon. One day I went down there because I needed some cables for an old P3 computer I was ressurecting from the dead to give to a needy family. I was amazed when I spotted pallet after pallet being loaded into a Matson container for shipment to the mainland.

I went inside the building where they were palletizing more old computers an asked if I could take a couple of em for parts. As it turns out the two computers I picked were in better shape than the one I was rebuilding and out of the three I was able to make one decent P3 computer.

With freeware and open source software I was able to give this family a fully functional computer running a Linux based operating system called Knoppix, www.knoppix.org and installed freeware called Open Office from www.openoffice.org

For the Knoppix webpage (it's written in German) click onto the US/British flag for the english version.

Now this family can surf the web in a "Windows" look and feel OS and an office suite that mimmicks MS Office 2003. Because both programs aren't memory or processor hogs, the P3 ran them very well to the point where I couldn't imagine why in the world anyone would throw out perfectly good computers.

I'm currently rebuilding two more P3's and am planning on giving them away too. There's practical life in these old computers and just because it can't run the latest Microsoft family of products that doesn't mean it can't run everything else.


knoppix is cool!! os on a cd! good for hardware troubleshooting... detects everything! :)

dat would be nice to build pcs and give to the needy! :rolleyes:

i remember a while back reading somewhere that computer recyclers would harvest the 14/24 kt gold contacts from the printed circuit boards to melt and sell for cash. i wonda if dey still do dat?? :confused: i no recall seeing gold traces in todays mobos... maybe back in da mid 80s...

[Miulang]

One other thing to remember if you decide to recycle obsoleted computers: make sure you reformat the HD for a couple of reasons:
1) if you've got financial or other personal information stored on it, someone else down the road doesn't need to have access to that information.
2) the OEM software licenses for that machine belong to you, and if Microsoft or any other software company really wanted to get picky about it, they could claim piracy.

There are magnetic devices you can use to completely obliterate whatever was on your drive. But if you want to go the cheap route, reformat the HD at least twice, to make it harder for anyone to decrypt stuff on it (computer forensic experts could still probably decrypt pieces of data, but the ordinary person wouldn't have the smarts or the equipment to do it). If you're planning to give the computer away, one other option would be to replace your HD with a clean, unformatted one (the smaller HDs are reasonably priced now). But then you have a problem with disposing the data on the other drive.


Miulang

[helen]

i remember a while back reading somewhere that computer recyclers would harvest the 14/24 kt gold contacts from the printed circuit boards to melt and sell for cash. i wonda if dey still do dat?? :confused: i no recall seeing gold traces in todays mobos... maybe back in da mid 80s...
The gold is not in the motherboards but rather inside an intergrated circuit between the actual silicon wafer and to whatever metal it is used for intergrated circuit's pins.

[kimo55]

One other thing to remember if you decide to recycle obsoleted computers:


did ya see this lately?
sure wish someone would properly dispose of that loooonnnggg line of computers and moniters ya see on the street against the wall fronting that apt complex or school... to yer right going ewa on Hi somewere near the wilder offramp...

[craigwatanabe]

hi craig, what you say is true though i'm sure you know that most of us don't have your skills (wish i did, though). anyway, i've got an "old" dell that's about 3 years old and i bet i wouldn't get more than $200 for it even though it's still perfectly fine. a lot of people clearly want the latest and greatest even though they don't need it :confused:

what you did is cool. do you know if there's a place like that on oahu? by the way, open office is terrific. if anyone out there doesn't wanna shell out money for ms office, try open office. it's totally free and constantly being improved.


Building computers isn't as hard as you might imagine. I used to rely on my friend Dexter to build my computers for my kids and myself. When I moved to the Big Island, it was really hard and expensive to ship my computer to him on Oahu to fix (and my kids would crash or break them frequently) so I decided to learn myself. If a 13-year old can do it so could I was my mantra as I poured thru every computer magazine I could find at Border's.

Even though I didn't understand what the heck I was reading half the time, I kept reading and writing notes then rereading the same articles until they made sense like, "Oh that's what an IDE cable is".

Within one month of intense reading just magazines, I was able to build my first computer from stratch, not a barebones but raw case, power supply whatever. From reading I understood the differences in the types of RAM modules out there and their compatibility. From reading I understood the different socket configurations for different CPU's.

In one month I became somewhat computer literate. To this date (about five months now) I've built six computers, repaired five (including two laptops), and am currently building my seventh computer. This one will be my precious baby spending bucks on a Thermaltake Tsunami black brushed aluminum case because I want this to be my media pc and it will stand on a pedestal next to my TV set. This case is a work of art and at $99 it cost as much as one.

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/1824/thermaltaketsunamicaseblack9gc.th.jpg (http://img65.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thermaltaketsunamicaseblack9gc.jpg)

I'm also building another P3. So this order to New Egg will be close to $1000 and that includes both builds plus one 19-inch LCD monitor to boot and Windows Media Center OS. The P3 will be running the freeware opensource Knoppix software and Open Office. It's still cheaper to buy a Dell at $299 for a complete Celeron CPU plus monitor, but mine will be way more powerful the same price.

[pinakboy]

The gold is not in the motherboards but rather inside an intergrated circuit between the actual silicon wafer and to whatever metal it is used for intergrated circuit's pins.


dang too lil bit den da gold!! lol :D

i shud jus call my classmates up at da oregon intel fab plant jus gimme da scraps befo dey put togetha da chips! hehehe :rolleyes:

[pinakboy]

One other thing to remember if you decide to recycle obsoleted computers: make sure you reformat the HD for a couple of reasons:
1) if you've got financial or other personal information stored on it, someone else down the road doesn't need to have access to that information.
2) the OEM software licenses for that machine belong to you, and if Microsoft or any other software company really wanted to get picky about it, they could claim piracy.

Here at work we sanitize all hard drives for destruction or for donation by writing zeros and ones to the HD. It's usually a DOD wipe which is US Department of Defense clearing standard DOD 5220.22-M specification. It swipes the hd a certain number of times. Normal data recovery methods available to the public cannot recover the info. But military and govt hardware/software utilities can do so for forensic evidence gathering.

:rolleyes:

[craigwatanabe]

dang too lil bit den da gold!! lol :D

i shud jus call my classmates up at da oregon intel fab plant jus gimme da scraps befo dey put togetha da chips! hehehe :rolleyes:

The gold layering or plating on the contacts are so thin that HP tells it's technicians not to use an eraser tip to clean them. The gold is flashed onto the surface to a thickness of 0.5 micron and using a pencil eraser will literally erase the gold off the underlying metal base.

Basically if you have less than a few thousand motherboards to strip gold off of then it's just not worth it especially now that gold is at such a dismal price per ounce. Ahh I remember those days when an ounce of gold was close to $1000 per ounce. That's why when Michael W.Perry announces the price of gold, Larry Price always boos because he too can remember when gold was worth...well...GOLD! I think platinum is worth more than gold now.

[shaveice]

hey craig, pretty cool. hadn't heard of knoppix; sounds pretty amazing. will look into it. also, what you wrote about learning how to build your own pc is cool but right now i don't have the time. maybe later.

muilang, thanks for the links; that org that recycles computers and trains kids, and puts computers into schools is fantastic. so good to hear about a group like that.

[adrian]

I'm currently rebuilding two more P3's and am planning on giving them away too. There's practical life in these old computers and just because it can't run the latest Microsoft family of products that doesn't mean it can't run everything else.
Not a bad idea, except that the only non working computer I have is laying around my room and its probably shot because of the ESD it accumilated over the months.

Maybe I should do that to one of the computers that my brother or cousin are using, then maybe I can stop worrying about spyware and whatnot.

Anyone knows where I can get an old PII system so that I can join in the fun? (of rebuilding something and giving it to charity)

[craigwatanabe]

Try checking Goodwill on Waikamilo Road near Nimitz Highway. They have a lot of computer stuff that eventually gets the boot if no one buys it.

PII's are pushing the useful envelope however as their speed is so slow and parts support is so limited you will probably have a hard time just finding memory modules for them. PIII's on the other hand will handle software such as Windows XP PRO! There's still limited support for PIII's so it's still relatively easy to build brand new PIII computers or rebuild old ones. And they're cheap too. I keep an old PIII as my standby just in case.

[adrian]

Anyone knows where I can dispose of old computer cases with parts? I'm cleaning my room, and I have these two I believe AT-form factor desktop cases with an old riser card.

I was thinking of bringing it to the refuse center, but I thought I'd check here first. And no, I don't think they work.

[Leo Lakio]

Does Hawai`i require that computer parts be recycled/disposed of in a certain fashion? If so, you won't be able to take them just anywhere. I would think your employer should have the info, Adrian, considering their business.

[GeckoGeek]

Link (http://envhonolulu.org/solid_waste/archive/Computer_Recycling.html) (junk added to keep computer happy)