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"It could contain traces of mercury, cadmium, fire retardant and up to five pounds of lead, making it one of the biggest sources of hazardous waste in the country.
... With the rate of obsolescence accelerating - most organizations now consider a personal computer outdated in three years - dealing with old equipment is no small matter. Last year, more than 63 million computers in the United States were replaced by faster, better and most likely cheaper systems."
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13459
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"That means that individuals and companies often hold on to obsolete equipment until it is too old to be valuable to another user, Mr. Delia said. "The sooner you're done with it, get it out," he said. "The asset value goes down every month.""
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I held an auction at my company. I took all of the old computers and monitors and I installed Ubuntu on the machines. I set a minimum bit of $10 and a max bid of $50. The first person to $50 got the machine. We made about $500. Much better than the $200 it cost to get rid of them.
I actually had a guy ask me about software for Ubuntu. He was having a really hard time grasping the notion of free software. If you're not familiar with it, there is a menu section in Ubuntu called Add/Remove Software. It is like being a kid in a candy store. Just about anything you could want is listed pre-compiled ready to install. This guy thought he'd died and gone to heaven when he finally understood what I was telling him.
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they sell of the old ones where I work too. PIII/1Gig machines were going for $100 with a 17" monitor, and a few lucky people got some PIII/933 or 1 gig laptops for $150. all have a 3 day guarantee, and last time they all had W2K installed with a valid license and disk.
They go for a flat price, and everyone interested puts their name onto a drawing, and have 48 hours to pay cash or check and make it go away, or another name is drawn.
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We've done first com-first served before. Usually we don't have to worry about people not getting one. THis was about 2-3 years ago, we sold PII machines for $75 with a monitor and Pii laptops with docking stations for $125. All retained their installed Windows version. We might do it again this year for 3 year old Dell P4 laptops, howeever the boss wants to set $250 for them.
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I donate my old computers (non mac) to my hometown library. There are farm kids that cannot afford a computer for school and since I buy only laptops the donation is perfect. DT might be a problem altho there is a local organization the takes them and rebuilds to donate to schools.
Goodwill here has a service that will dispose of old computers for the dump.
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I am a strong believer in recycle. I used to buy old Mac computers and laser printers from UCLA to fix up then give away.
BTW, there was a TV document about illegal dumping of old computer equipments, the majority of which is coming from the States, to foreign countries, i.e. China, India, Afrika, etc. Most of them have been discarded illegally in impoverished villages, whereas village folks would extract precious metals from the computers. And because they do the work without any protection from mercury, lead, etc. these people are dangerously being exposed to the toxic materials.
Kap
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Sam3 Wrote:
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> We might do it again
> this year for 3 year old Dell P4 laptops, howeever
> the boss wants to set $250 for them.
Sam, can someone outside of your company or state buy one? I'm still looking for a cheap laptop for my brother and would love to buy one of these for him. Does it come with wireless at all?
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One of the reasons I buy my Macs for my business (and home) on a three-year rotation basis. I get a new Mac and someone gets a near-mint, still damn usable used Mac (usually chok full of RAM) at a bargain.
(A passing thought; funny how the same people who will research automobile resale prices to no end and base a purchase on that won't apply it to the whole Mac vs. Windows PC situation. I know, it's a different money bracket, etc. But still.)
