| General > General Technical Chat |
| What's the situation with E-Waste in your country? Can you 'pick up for repair'? |
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| JPortici:
--- Quote from: eliocor on December 22, 2023, 12:12:53 am ---Here in NE Italy (at least in my town) is forbidden to take anything from the e-waste center.... :( --- End quote --- I'm not sure if it's the law or just waste disposal rules, but i confirm that once it's in the bin you can't take it out 99.9999% of the time it's trash though, back then when it was permitted to take shit back i used to score interesting stuff (mostly old computers when i was into retrocomputing) but i'm talking about 10-15 years ago. For anything that could possibly be worth something you have to go to flea markets these days Also, as with our friends in germany, if you bring too much trash you also get to pay extra taxes for that year. Which kind of makes sense, the idea is to produce as little trash as possible and recycle whatever you can. Also, since a few years ago when you change any appliance the store can/must (depending on type) take the old one and dispose of it free of charge. Finally this is also happening for furniture. |
| Zero999:
--- Quote from: G0HZU on December 23, 2023, 11:04:16 am --- --- Quote from: SolderSucker on December 21, 2023, 07:46:25 pm ---In my country (UK) there doesn't appear to be any 'official' way to get hold of E-Waste from the recycling/waste centres for personal use (either that's in working condition or for repair and perhaps even to sell it on once repaired). What's the situation in your country? Do the local recycling depots allow people to go through their piles of E-Waste and take (or buy) whatever they like (if it's only a few items)? Or do they go one step further and have it all laid out so that people can browse what's available and take (or buy) a few items? --- End quote --- Here in the UK things are changing in this respect. Apparently my local recycling centre is closing for renovation next month and when it reopens it will have a 'shop' where useful stuff (that was disposed of by someone) can be purchased by the public. Obviously, this isn't the same as dumpster diving but at least there is a way to buy stuff. I'm not sure how well this system will work in practice. I suspect it may only operate for a while before they close the shop. It's a nice concept, but I suspect it could cause too many problems for the recycling centre. --- End quote --- Many waste contractors already sell items which still work or can be easily, even if they don't have an on site shop. Another issue for many items is data protection. Criminals could steal personal information stored on devices to commit fraud. |
| jonovid:
--- Quote ---If you are after stuff, just cruise the streets on the night before collection. --- End quote --- if your looking for it, your get it. no problem |
| Stray Electron:
I've lived all over the US and in several places in Canada and I've never found any place that would let you pick through any kind of government owned dump (US, state, city, military base, etc). However there are private companies all over the place that buy up "scrap" from large manufacturers and sometime even from government facilities and recycle it. Often their idea of recycling is to crush it and sell it for mixed scrap but some of them will tear it down and separate the materials and sell the different metals separately. They are particularly looking for gold scrap and other valuable metals. A few of those place will attempt to sell machinery and TE in surplus stores or online on places like Lab-X and E-Greed. If you look at the listings on E-Greed, you can spot the many sellers that obviously don't know what they're selling or what it's worth or how to tell if it's working. All of that said, in the years before the rise of E-Greed I used to ask around and find out who the local recyclers were and then go visit them and ask if I could pick through their stuff and if they would sell to me. Most get just pennies per pound for most of the materials so many of them were very happy to sell to me at anywhere from $1 to $10 per pound. And there was no labor involved for them! I bought a LOT of TE that way! I still have racks full of TE that I bought over 15 years ago that I've never touched. One of the finds that particularly remember was a recycler in Melbourne, Florida. The find time I went in there, I found an HP-9816 (aka HP 9000 series 216) computer sitting on a workbench and already starting to be torn down. I bought it on the spot for $5 even thought it was missing the top cover. It turns out that it worked and had one of the HP BASIC ROM boards in it. Even with no top cover, I carried it around with me for years and used it to test HP-IB drives and devices. https://deskthority.net/wiki/HP_9816 Look for the recyclers in your area, not the dumps. |
| YurkshireLad:
My local BestBuy accepts electronic waste in the entrance to the store. I suppose someone could ask if they could take it to repair/recover if they asked I don't see why they would say no. There hasn't been much recently, but months ago the entrance was stuffed full of electronics. |
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