I am a firm believer that for the most part, older computers are best kept in the trash - that’s it. But after reading this article on making those old PCs come to life again, it appears that I might have been misguided.

In an industrial office complex outside of Boston, used computers, servers, monitors and printers are put to rest. Some will become technology organ donors, their parts removed for use in machines that are deemed salvageable. Components and parts might wind up being shipped to recycling centers in Tennessee or California, where their bits of gold, silver and copper will be removed and their steel sold for use as construction materials.

The Technology Renewal Center in Andover, Mass. is operated by Hewlett-Packard Financial Services (HP), and is where damaged and outdated equipment that had been leased to customers is sent for repair, rehabilitation or recycling in a process replicated by vendors throughout the IT industry, which has increasingly turned attention to environmental concerns. [Read the rest]