Computer recycling centers scraping Vintage computers

Retro6 · 27 Feb 2019 at 19:07

So there is this Computer recycling center which is also a charity I wont mention the charity name but I have worked there as a volunteer for them in the past and I have seen perfectly good working vintage computers get scraped just because they don't meet there computer hardware requirements like 486 systems to Pentium III computers. They just get broken up and scrapped. Trying to tell them that there is a lot of interest in old vintage computers is like speaking to a brick wall where they could potentially make a bit of money out of them that they could put back into there charity by selling them off instead of trashing them and your not allowed to take anything from there, not so much as a stick of RAM lol.

So what the charity does is they get donated computers where the hard drives are securely data whipped and checks are carried out to make sure they are working with a minimal hardware requirement, then they are shipped overseas to developing countries. They have recently started to scrap Pentium 4 machines now and the minimal requirement is now Dual Core systems and anything below that gets trashed.

I'm just thinking of a way how I can convince them...

tom_e · 27 Feb 2019 at 19:18

It's probably not worth the hassle for the couple of quid you could get for them.

Jamesyboyjim · 28 Feb 2019 at 11:33

I see this kinda thing at my local tip. There's always pc tower's chucked in with the electrical waste. I often wonder what is contained within

Deleted member 77746 · 1 Mar 2019 at 14:21

Retro6 said:
I'm just thinking of a way how I can convince them...

You can't it's a recyling company. They make enough money without destroying or sending the computers onto 3rd world. I used to work in one.

Matzo · 2 Mar 2019 at 09:16

It's a shame if you can't convince them. I suppose you could still show them what a working Pentium I or older machines are at on eBay. You'd be surprised how much a 486 CPU and motherboard can fetch, I've seem them go from anywhere from £30 to over £100. VLB Cards can sell for silly prices.

I've seen quite a lot of components from eastern european making their way back onto the vintage pc market. Graphics and sounds cards without metal headers. CPU's that have been dipped to remove the gold etc. The downside to this is that dead or damaged components and motherboards can also field their way back too.

Retro6 · 4 Mar 2019 at 17:11

Matzo said:
It's a shame if you can't convince them. I suppose you could still show them what a working Pentium I or older machines are at on eBay. You'd be surprised how much a 486 CPU and motherboard can fetch, I've seem them go from anywhere from £30 to over £100. VLB Cards can sell for silly prices.

I've seen quite a lot of components from eastern european making their way back onto the vintage pc market. Graphics and sounds cards without metal headers. CPU's that have been dipped to remove the gold etc. The downside to this is that dead or damaged components and motherboards can also field their way back too.

I've spoke to the reception staff about it and I have even offered to buy a couple but they just say they don't sell them and ask me if I want to buy a refurbished dual core PC :rolleyes:

I remember the trend of people trashing old computers for the 10 pence worth of gold in them and with all the work that's involved its just not worth it and the amount of gold you'd get is very little. The computers themselves are worth a lot more as they are.