free geek

Today I took 11 boxes of rummage (and some assorted items) to my parish for the upcoming Rummage Sale.

I also took my old laptop, CPU, monitor, and accessories to a cool local nonprofit called Free Geek. According to their website:

"Free Geek was founded in February 2000 (and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) in April 2000) to recycle computer technology and provide low and no-cost computing to individuals and not-for-profit and social change organizations in the community and throughout the world.

In the four years since its formation, Free Geek has recycled over 360 tons of electronic scrap and refurbished over 3,000 computer systems that are now in use by individuals and organizations in the community."

You can donate any computer equipment to Free Geek (they do ask for a donation - mine was $21). They'll repair and reuse what they can. Pure junk will be "recycled responsibly." Unlike a newstory I saw on tv a few months ago (where "recycled" computer equipment was sent to China to fill up junk heaps), Free Geek actually means it. They take the machine apart and send the various parts (plastic, steel, circuit boards, etc..) to local industrial recyclers to process the materials.

Part of the reason I took my cpu to Free Geek was I knew that they took extra care with the hard drives. I tried to take stuff off the machine, but I'm a pure amateur. If Free Geek is going to keep the hard drive, they remove the partition table remove and then are overwritten five times in the process of testing. If they're not going to reuse a hard drive, it is physically destroyed or sent to a recycler which will physically destroy it (hence the picture!).

Cool!