My county government’s waste management department has a recycling center for computers and peripherals, but it certainly doesn’t compare to Oregon’s Free Geek program (“Helping the needy get nerdy since the beginning of the third millenium”).
FREE GEEK accepts computers and computer related hardware in any condition. If you are donating equipment that is known to be broken or a computer older than a Pentium II PC or PPC Mac, we do ask for a donation to help with our processing costs.
Free Geek has an “adoption program.” Volunteers who donate 24 hours of service in the recycling facility can adopt a refurbished computer. If a volunteer agrees to (re)build six computers, Free Geek teaches how to do that, and the volunteer keeps the sixth machine.
Here’s a five-minute video (MPG), also available on YouTube.
[coolplayer]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=625LPUACix0[/coolplayer]
Wow, I wish they had something like that here. I’m always mortified by the prospect of throwing away working computer parts.
No kidding — I was going to email this to you, but I see there’s no need.
Maybe you need to form your local chapter…