Geeky Stuff

Do electronics go to heaven when they die?

Posted on February 4, 2008

I just sorted all my photo, video, computer and AV gear. These are the casualties. Some are totally dunzo, others still have a bit of juice left, and some are functional, just completely obsolete. So I really had to be really brutal in getting rid of things that I no longer need or use on a regular basis. I kept at least one of every cable cuz you never know when you are gonna need a rare or random cable. It happens almost once every week for me. So I like to keep all my ducks in the basket… a row. I think my smarts are currently disintegrating with every tv season I cram into a 48 period (which is Flight of the Conchords today).

It breaks my heart to bin this stuff. Does anyone know a good charity that I could donate any of the working gear to? Are there any charities that could make use or make money from recycling stuff like old cell phones and their chargers, film cameras, VCRs, an Apple G3 monitors? I may even have an LC475 kicking around somewhere.

I would also like to know if anyone knows of any organizations that recycle any electronics for parts or safely dispose of batteries and other environmentally toxic materials.

Thanks for your comments!

Gear Technology

Mostly Lisa

Lisa Bettany is a world renowned photographer, travel writer & tech entrepreneur. When she is not capturing the beauty of the world or making iPhone apps, she enjoys flying small planes, reading books about Spitfires, hiking in the mountains and drinking tea.

Christina

February 4, 2008 at 6:56 AM

Alright, how much do I rule? This is how much:

http://www.era.ca/donations/recycling/

and

http://www.era.ca/donations/recycling/yancouver.html

Looks like they’ll even come to you to pick stuff up — and they donate a large portion to schools, the community and other charities.

Pretty nifty. Here in the states we usually have to pay to recycle our electronics (and it’s not cheap, I got to get rid of two items when I bought my MacBook because Apple included free FedExing to some recycling plant, but doing it yourself can get expensive), and the scary Al Gore movie or not, PAYING to recycle my shit to some organization that is probably going to refurb half of it anyway is an easy way for me to dump stuff in the compactor.

Christina

February 4, 2008 at 11:34 AM

I got caught in your moderation filter for including URLs.

Find me in a stack of Viagra ads

Ian

February 4, 2008 at 3:17 PM

Ha, I’ve been going through this nightmare recently! After buying my first Mac 3 months ago I have gained some kind of obsession with getting wrid of junk, and my mountains of old electronics and pc’s seemed like a good place to start.

Unfortunately I also can’t bare to chuck things into the ground and would rather see them get reused or at least recycled. I feel pretty good today as I actually managed to send 4 mobile phones off for recycling!

I can’t really advise of anywhere to recycle your stuff as I’m the other side of the water, but persevere, as when you know your tech is going to a better place, it makes you feel warm inside ;)

ComposeAnalysis

February 4, 2008 at 4:34 PM

wow look at all those goodies!
I think Christina answered the questions perfectly
I have a bad habit of keeping every electronic and cord too, for example: my first mp3 player that plays for 30 min tops and holds a whopping 12 songs :)

Chris Magnusson

February 4, 2008 at 10:08 PM

In addition to what film_girl said, I noticed in the Calgary MEC that there is a box for dropping off old, unwanted cell phones; the Vancouver stores are likely the same. That could put a ding in your heap. Also, our town has a (usually) monthly recycling fair where anyone can take their recyclables and the group that holds it will cart the stuff away to wherever it is recycled. But that may be a rather excessive undertaking in a city as big as Vancouver. Finally, I saw something several months ago about a group in the Vancouver area that drove around picking up electronic recyclables/donatables but I am unable to find it atm.

Sean

February 4, 2008 at 11:34 PM

Do you have a Goodwill in your area?

If so, you could always donate the goodies to them and even get a tax break for doing it which leads me to use the part of my brain that’s Canadian and ask “do they give tax breaks in Canada, eh?”

I have a big rubber tub thing-a-ma-bob that I keep all sorts of wires, connectors, etc in… indeed, the life of a geek.

You could also turn that giant box-o-geektastic-future-rama-radical gear into a pet robot for your other robot.