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E-Waste

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Adam Tow

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E-Waste

I’ve been getting better about my electronic purchases these days. In the past, however, I’ve made some questionable decisions. The other day, I dropped off a box full of e-waste to the Goodwill trailer in the Valley Fair parking lot. Yes, the same parking lot where my hubcaps were stolen from my car a month ago.

Some of the items in the e-waste grab box included a RIM BlackBerry 957, a Nokia 8860, a Sony Ericsson t68i with a busted LCD screen, a USB 1.0 hub, a drained UPS, a wireless router with a fried chip, broken mice, and even a Ricochet SE wireless modem! Gadgets and accessories that once cost hundreds of dollars are now practically worthless. Such is the price of technological progress!

What pieces of technology have you recently retired? What’s the oldest gadget you’ve got still running? I am still using my 11-year old Newton eMate 300 as an alarm clock!

7 responses to “E-Waste”

  1. blogbarnacle Avatar
    blogbarnacle

    GreenCitizen has drop off sites for e-waste in los altos & palo alto. they charge a bit for some items, but they promise to de-manufacture them and not let them contaminate a 3rd world country. It’s a pretty swanky retail front.

    Reply
  2. Grant Hutchinson Avatar
    Grant Hutchinson

    “What pieces of technology have you recently retired?”

    It’s pretty rare that I retire (or at least get rid of) any old electronics gear … you know that about me already. But I did recently drop off a wide format Epson colour printer that a friend had given me about nine years ago. I had hoped to use it as a medium resolution photo proof printer, but was never happy with the quality. It’s sat in the basement for seven of those nine years … and weighs a blessed ton. Off to e-cycling it’s going.

    What’s the oldest gadget you’ve got still running?

    Besides the MP2100 I’m still running as a web server, my router is an 11 year old Power Mac 8600 running IPNetRouter, QuickDNS, and MacHTTP. My site (along with 40 or so other domains) is hosted on a Power Mac 9600/200MP of the same vintage.

    Reply
  3. Adam Avatar
    Adam

    Here’s a list of sites that can also take your e-waste.

    http://earth2tech.com/2008/03/25/5-sites-that-want-your-janky-gadgets/

    Reply
  4. b79 Avatar
    b79

    One of the solutions I’ve found that help tackle e-waste and keep existing, outdated PCs going is to go with a company called Userful. They’re huge on green computing and can use a single existing PC to power up to ten workstations at once. This is a huge way to help combat e-waste and bring outdated PCs back to life. You can find out more on this here – http://www.userful.com.

    Reply
  5. Tam Hanna Avatar
    Tam Hanna

    Hi adam,
    I just wanted to thank you for selling your Palm Vii to me some time ago! I still have it standing in my vitrine and have visitors look at it every now and then when I am in the family’s house!

    Best regards and THANK YOU!!!

    Tam Hanna

    Reply
  6. Rekobeko Avatar
    Rekobeko

    I implore you – please donate to OUT OF THE CLOSET. Goodwill is fine, but OOTC does so much for HIV/AIDS victims. Please. Donate your goods to them, so many suffer.

    Reply
    1. Lucka Avatar
      Lucka

      I secarehd a bunch of sites and this was the best.

      Reply

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Adam, here

Welcome to tow.com, my home on the internet since 1995. I’m an indie software artist and creator of apps such as MixEffect, MsgFiler, AlbumFiler, Wipe My Screen, and more. I’m also the producer and co-director of Autumn Gem. Enjoy your visit here!

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