>The car that can't pass emissions is like the computer that won't run. It's
>of no real use, except maybe for parts.
Um... WRONG... the $4,000 Toyota just needs a new cat ($100 in parts and
$80 in labor). The guy just felt like buying a new car. But since he
donated it to us with the understanding it would be cut up, we can't sell
it (like we would have liked, since we would have done the labor ourself,
and used the money we got by selling the car for 4 grand to buy a new
scott pack). Its about the same as throwing out a computer saying it is
good only for parts, because the OS install has become corrupted.
>(have you tried to salvage parts
>from
>a computer lately?)
I do it weekly, when I pick up PCs sitting in curbside garbage. I built
my home PC out of 90% salvaged parts. I have also upgraded most of the
computers at my office entirely out of garbaged PCs. Some are mix and
match, but many are picked up and need nothing more than a shot of 409 to
clean the case as they work perfectly. I get a working 14 inch SVGA
monitor
weekly at this point. Heck... I have a Mac LC5200 sitting on the floor
next to me that I just grabbed out of the garbage on my drive home
Sunday... works fine... its heading to one of my office sites to upgrade
an older 68k Mac.
>there are lots of perfectly useable
>PC's (you know, the ones with 640KB of RAM and no HDD) out there. They still
>do everything a PC ever did, and a lot more than the mainframes of 1960 did.
>What should we do with them? Once people don't want them any longer, whether
>they're still functional is entirely moot.
But there ARE people out there that still want them... they just aren't
being given the option to have them... they are being scrapped without
anyone checking.
>If someone's interested in 'em,
>well, that's why there's this list.
Sure, great, ok, contact the group taking all the computers from Staples,
and get them to agree to list all the computers they don't feel like
keeping (what was it 90% of them are being junked?) and have them offer
them up to others... either on this list, or a web site, or whatever. Bet
they will tell you to bugger off, they can't be bothered... they are
going to pick thru for the few they want, and the rest will become scrap
metal. That is unfortunately true for most organizations (the local
salvation army store told me they stopped taking computer donations
because of return problems... when I pressed them on the topic wondering
how they tell someone they can't donate an item... they told me that they
actually still take them, they just toss them in the dumpster to avoid
the heartaches of selling them... needless to say, I have been trying to
keep an eye on the dumpster)
So you are STILL wrong... a huge number of perfectly good... and WANTED
machines, get scrapped all the time. I could continue to give you
examples if you want... like the pharmaceutical company up the road that
is tossing working Pentium II PCs and 17 inch monitors, because they are
upgrading to P4's and flat screens. The PCs are being junked under
contract to have them destroyed because the hard drives may contain
sensitive info, and they didn't want to take the time to remove them, or
securely wipe them (a friend works at the site, I had him look into it).
Should I give you MORE examples of machines being scrapped that are
wanted, or useful, or interesting?
-chris
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Received on Fri Feb 15 2002 - 00:30:48 GMT