Computer recycling is a vital topic. Over the years, I’ve seen my computers become obsolete with disturbing frequency. With operating system and applications increasingly hungry for resources, planned obsolescence is the name of the game. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to worry about computer recycling … we’d simply upgrade the components as we rolled along. Alas, it’s not always that easy.

You shouldn’t just throw out your old computers in the trash–they contain far too many toxic materials. While I know I should get in touch with a computer recycling firm to get rid of a couple of old boxes hanging around ranchero indebto, I’ve hesitated. Not that I’m a total pack rat, but I do admit to being a little sentimental about some of my computers. Recycling is one option to research, but I’m keen on repurposing my old iron.

I’ve found good use for a number of my old machines over the years …

If you’re thinking about recycling your old computer, you might consider donation as your first option. The first computer I recycled was donated to my brother’s church, somewhere in the late 1980s or early 1990s. It was a AST 80286 desktop PC with a monochrome screen, Hercules graphics, and a 20MB HD … funny to think how limited it was, but still it was a nifty box in its day. (Anyone remember run-time Windows with PageMaker 1.0?) The folks in the church were grateful to have a computer to run their mailing list. And I was glad to see the trusty old box go to a good cause.

I replaced that 286 with a Zeos (now Micron) 80386 tower. I rode that horse for a good many years and when it came time to give it a rest, the computer ended up being put out to the proverbial pasture in the basement.

I recycled the 386 in-house, when I pulled it out of storage a couple of years ago to use as the timing computer for the slot car track. (The timing system runs in DOS!). It’s still running strong.

Next we come to the 80486 box … another Zeos. I recall swapping lots of stuff in and out of this one, with video cards aplenty and a processor upgrade. I had leased a Dell Inspiron notebook shortly before the 486 went south, and it too, landed in the basement, where it waits for the proper recycling opportunity.

The Inspiron ended up going back to Dell when its lease was up–laptop disposal problem solved.

Among my Macs, there’s one that’s ready for the recycler: a dusty old PowerMac 7200. This was an odd critter, one that was problematic to upgrade, back when upgrading made sense. After the 7200 outlived its graphics usefulness, it spent some time as an edutainment test bed. Now it sits, overlooked but not overclocked, keys missing from the keyboard … dreaming of the days when that startup Bronnng would bring joy to the eyes of the howling wolverines.

If you can’t find a local charity that wants your old computer, take a look on the Internet … there are lots of computer recycling companies that would be glad to take that old box (or old boxes) off your hands.