What to do with unwanted IT equipment?

[Stevoc]

Today's weather has finally forced me to set to on my home office - something I've been putting off for a very long time

I have a number of old laptops, desktops and a monitor that are surplus to requirements - does anyone have any suggestions as to what to do with them?

My local recycling centre has an area for electrical goods - but I was wondering if there were any organisations that may be able to make use of them?

I should make it clear, that I'm not looking for any money for them

I'm in North London and a quick google has only returned charities who deal in business collections

thanks

Steve

[David_D]

Found this on Google - any use?

https://itforcharities.co.uk/it-services/recycled-pcs/

[hughtrimble]

Not an organisation, but Freecycle I've found to be extremely useful for enabling others to continue to use things I've no longer a use for such as electronics, furniture and various bits and bobs that otherwise would be consigned to landfill or put into the recycling.

[mtagrant]

Consider what is on your old hard drives if you recycle and remove / destroy appropriately

[Sweepinghand]

I used to work in IT asset management and this is a horror story waiting to happen

Your computer equipment no matter how much you think you’ll have deleted info from will still hold it in various hidden drives within drives

Get in touch with an IT disposal company that is Adisa accredited (check their site) and give one of the firms a call

Drop the goods off to them and explain you don’t want them and don’t want nothing for them

They’ll hopefully then make no charge and you can sleep easy knowing the kit will have been dealt with properly and they’ll send you proof

The alternative is to remove the hard drives completely

Should be a simplistic job for somebody - then put a nail through them or batter it to death with a hammer


Sorry to be dramatic but in the industry I’ve seen so any laptops and pc based turn up “wiped” that hold on further inspection personal info

[Montello]

I physically destroy hard drives in old machines. Too much risk to just donate a working computer.

[Ventura]

If some of them have cameras from webcams etc you could use them for home CCTV. There is a guy on YouTube that did this. It's very clever and far less obstructive then some cameras.

[David_D]

I used to work in IT asset management and this is a horror story waiting to happen

Your computer equipment no matter how much you think you’ll have deleted info from will still hold it in various hidden drives within drives

Get in touch with an IT disposal company that is Adisa accredited (check their site) and give one of the firms a call

Sounds like very good advice. Hard drives aren't too difficult to extract from a desktop leaving the rest to re-use. Laptop, probably less so.

[Mr.D]

Pull the drives out and smash them with a hammer if you are that worried. HDD platters are doped glass they will pulverise to powder if you hit them a few times.

If you are looking to repurpose a drive then zero it out and then do a low level format. No one will bring that data back . Forget the spook stories.