One of the issues I currently have to deal with is choosing the best way to get rid of some of our old hardware. I am binning anything really old and pointless but some stuff seems like it would be worth selling on ebay.
What do other people do? For example I now have a pile of 10/100Mbit dlink switches, a pile of old laptops (sans battery and memory) etc...
Does anyone have any success with ebaying stuff? Our PTA has offered to sell stuff on ebay for me.
You can't just bin electrical equipment it has to be disposed of correctly.
WEEE Directive.
Ben
You could do worse...
My father has been buying old socket A and various other bits off me because he's constantly repairing old machines for clients who just don't want to upgrade.
Worth looking to see what does and doesn't sell though and I've found the "pallet" or "job lot" approach to get rid of a mass of stuff for next to nothing will work quite well too.
If nothing else, selling a pallet of random stuff for £10 is better than having to pay £100's to get rid of it to a landfill.
I use the term 'bin' loosely - I mean 'get a company to come and collect it and provide us with the correct documentation under the WEEEEEE directive'.
errrrrr, we hired a big blue skip, piled it all in and shut the door job done! Waste company collected it no problems, they even knew what was in it.
Mike.
My network manager and myself took a 40 mile round trip going to three different tip places (whatever they are called) getting rid of our computers. Going back to the same one several times in a row with 15 odd computers each time annoys them, so we went to a different one each time. The first one accepted them, the other two refused. T'was fun while it lasted though.
The computers that were at all decent have just been given away for free on Friday and today to the staff. We had about 20 altogether, so instead of paying someone to take them away for us, we gave them away. We just made a new image of windows 98, shoved Open Office and AVG Free on there so we could advertise them as coming with an office suite and virus scanner (i'm devious like that) and they are all gone now.
I have a few bits and bobs left, a few computers with their intestines hanging out, but tomorrow (if I can open the darn cases, these ones are so difficult) i'm going to hopefully make two or three working computers out of the mess in the stock room. Then i'll hand those to anyone who wants them for free.
Everything else (which isn't much) i'll decide what to do with later.
A local church collects them for sending out to Africa, I donate all my old kit to them, after I have data wiped it all, its good to see it going to good use, I have had photos from them of where they go and seen a letter that one village school wrote to them thanking the group for the computers and what a difference they have made to there lives. Its quite amazing really what good a P2 400mhz with 64mb ram makes out in Africa, when all I would get here is somthing like "the computers are soooo ******* slow" etc from the kids here in the uk.
Good point. I think if we had had the time, we might have done something like this. Our school would have loved a letter from a third world country thanking them for equipment. The only issue really was time though, we were given a deadline to sort the stockroom as we are turning it into the new ICT Suite for those with learning disabilities. The deadline has already passed and a lot of our stuff is still in there...Originally Posted by john
I'd have prefered they went to staff then the kids of our school though... if I know the parents well enough (and I know them pretty well) they'd sell them at the local pub for a twenty.
Bad, bad, bad idea!! Don't give up your storeroom! What I would give for a storeroom! As a department, ICT probably has the third largest amount of stuff to store and in terms of storage space, it has the least - none (unless you count storing things in my office as I do now, which is very annoying).The only issue really was time though, we were given a deadline to sort the stockroom as we are turning it into the new ICT Suite for those with learning disabilities.
Heh, no choice i'm afraid. The head teacher is very excited about this. Most of the stuff in there is old junk anyway, stuff that has needed throwing out for years.
As for good equipment being stored... that doesn't happen in either of my schools. If it works, its generally already in use.
I'm sure they've been mentioned before, but we use PCB Plus for equipment disposal/recycling. Very satisfied.
We have got this container at the back of the school where we throw monitors and other electrical equipment, the only trouble is we have had it about a year, had it emptied twice costing £800 each time. To be honest, its just full of CRT monitors. with the VGA cable cut off, but there is a guy in the yorkshire area (if anyone wants his email addy or phone number let me know) based in kirby moreside, that will come and pick up old equipment, i got a price off him to get rid of about 30 CRT 15" monitors and he charged £10. Usually its free pick up, but seeing as we had a load, he had to get a bigger van.
Now the school/site team are moaning about IT filling up the container, so i said why not just load each other cars up and take it to the tip... to be honest... it all goes to the same place... the local land fill. Oh there is also a local WEEE place in Cas, but i don thave the number for it.
They won't take them. Or at least they don't here. You are supposed to be a domestic customer to use them (and even they are restricted to one computer per car as he kindly informed us as we arrived with 15 computers). It's annoying because Birmingham City Council run them and we are an LEA school. Yet they can't take stuff from their own schools? Lol.
The only items I have no idea what to do with now is about 10 RM computers which are almost completely bare (no idea where all the RAM, CD Drives and HDDs went). These were among the pile that were taken to the tip but refused.
You mean they ended up in someones pockets and worked their way home.The only items I have no idea what to do with now is about 10 RM computers which are almost completely bare (no idea where all the RAM, CD Drives and HDDs went). These were among the pile that were taken to the tip but refused.
Shhh Tim, its a perk of the job
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