Posted By janice on January 25, 2009

Yesterday at work, we had our first ever Personal Computer Recycling Day as Get Organized Month. The director of Asset Management, two people from Integrated Desktop Services and I were as we took computers, printers, cell phones, and assorted stuff. Everyone who came looked happy and relieved to find a place to get rid of their old computers and reclaim their space.

The biggest relief was the fact that we – okay the folks from Integrated Desktop Services – were going to wipe the hard drives on the CPUs using the same method we use for our work computers. The hard drives are exposed to an electromagnetic pulse and then melted. The rest of the computer is sent to an agency that refurbishes them for schools or recycles them appropriately if they can’t be reused.

People had kept their CPUs for years because they were afraid about thieves accessing personal information on the hard drive. There are services out there that will remove your hard drive for $25 to $30 for you. As one of our participants said yesterday, the drive was saving people money and time. “People will spend $1,500 on a computer but don’t want to spend $25 to clean the hard drive,” he said.

If you’re ready to get rid of your old computers and there’s no computer recycling drive, several recycling centers in Houston will recycle computers and other electronic equipment. Just make sure you have hard drive is removed. I found out yesterday that some computers have more than one hard drive.

We saw some old computers yesterday, including the first Hewlett-Packard monitor from 1985. We oohed over that, but his wife said for us not to admire too much or he would take it back. We had a good laugh at how big some of the monitors were. Just a couple of years ago, we all had those before the arrival of flat screens.

Some of the strangest things we found were: a refrigerator part, an old medical instrument, and a gigantic printer that collates and stapled like a copier.

But hey, we’ll make sure everything gets recycled. Our first computer recycling day was a big success. We’re already talking about having another one for Earth Day in April.

Categories: Technology
Tags: computer recycling, recycle, technology recycling