Where’s Your PC Now?

While the first part of this story is certainly sad and unfortunate, it is later into the article where things become readily frightening. Hard drives, likely unwiped, are available for a song to anyone willing to pay. Imagine, all of your history just sitting there on an old PC that you “threw away.” One might think of it as mother nature’s revenge for not recycling the computer in the first place

With cyber crime getting worse all the time, it never ceases to amaze me how naive most Westerners are about what happens when they dispose of their computers. But this is not a problem that is limited to just the West. Other regions contribute to this problem as well. Worse, they are also contributing to the criminal element.

With the poverty many of these regions see, it can hardly be much of a shock to see so many people feeling like the best approach to dealing with the circumstances is to dive into old hard drives to see what riches lay in wait for the hungry finder. It’s scary… but it is a fact of life. Lesson here: don’t be stupid. Destroy old hard drives… then recycle them.

• The Smart Bin Waste/Recycling Bin - 4 gal.
• 60 Minutes - The Wasteland (November 9, 2008)
• Green Careers: Recycling
• Don’t Trash (Lawn) Grass! - Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection Waste Management Bureau Recycling Program
• The Appeal
• Garbage In, Garbage Out: Solving the Problems with Long-Distance Trash Transport
• Nuclear Waste Stalemate: Political and Scientific Controversies