Ghost in the machine

Old electronics don’t have to die

By Jess Kilby

The week after Christmas is a scary time in the life of an obsolete computer. It sits on the floor in the corner, wrapped in a tangle of SCSI-port cords, waiting morosely for trash day while you get high off the plastic fumes from your new machine. (That shit will give you cancer, you know.)

But wait! You’re not really going to toss that old hunk of plastic, are you? Or stash it in a closet until the next time you clean house/have a yard sale/move? Granted, the closet is preferable to the curb, but there are better ideas than either.

Reissue

The most simple solution is to give your old computer to somebody who needs it. This may be easier said than done, of course, especially if the thing really is a dinosaur. But if you upgraded more as a splurge than out of necessity, or if your idea of necessity is a 2.53-gig Pentium 4 with a 40-gig hard drive and two gigs of RAM, chances are good that your old machine will be of use to somebody. I’ve unloaded several CPUs and monitors on friends and family members, and all equipment has been put to good use.

Also try schools, nursing homes, youth centers, shelters, and nonprofits in the area. If your office has recently upgraded its equipment, Ruth’s Reusable Resources (www.ruths.org), in Scarborough, coordinates donations between businesses and Maine schools. (Unfortunately, Ruth’s can’t take donations from individuals at this time.) And if you can’t find any local takers for your used equipment, www.cristina.org is a national foundation that pairs donors and recipients from all over the country, and takes donations from individuals as well as corporations.

Last, but not least, Goodwill and Salvation Army both take computers in working condition, though a call ahead is always a good idea (sometimes they get overloaded). And make sure to get a receipt if you donate to any sort of nonprofit, because tax season cometh, baby.

Reimagine

Of course, it may be the case that there’s life yet in that old computer, just not the kind that can play Warcraft III until the sun comes up. Now is the perfect time to assess just what the little machine can do, and set to. I once inherited a used Mac Classic, for example, only because I wanted the printer that came with it, and the original owner knew a good way to get rid of the whole kit and caboodle when she saw one. Years later, while cleaning out my closets for a moving sale (of course), I gave the Classic to a friend who was smart enough to salivate over the vintage machine, and it now sits on her kitchen counter as an electronic recipe archive.

For the more technically inclined, repurposing an old box offers even greater possibilities. How about turning it into a dedicated firewall? A backup server? An automation system for any or every electrical device in your home? A DIY TiVo? Some of these suggestions make take a little additional investment in hardware or software, and you’d do yourself a favor by learning Linux first (hell, do yourself a favor and learn Linux anyway — it’ll be that much longer before you need to upgrade equipment again), but they’re all doable ideas and they’ve all been done. Your good friend Google can tell you more.

Recycle

If your computer system is hopelessly dead or useless, traditional recycling may be the only option. You could go the self-styled route (planter, aquarium, bong), or you could let the professionals handle it. But whatever you do, know that there are laws governing the disposal of computers and other electronics that contain hazardous material. (What hazards, you ask? How about lead and cadmium in your computer’s circuit boards, lead oxide and barium in your monitor’s cathode-ray tubes, mercury if you have a flat screen, and brominated flame retardants on printed circuit boards, cables, and plastic casing? All said and done, the average computer contains between five and eight pounds of lead and toxic heavy metals like cadmium, mercury, and arsenic.)

In Maine, homeowners are exempt from the 2001 state law that holds schools and businesses to rigorous computer-recycling standards. And Portland lacks an official computer-recycling program, which means, technically speaking, that you could put your machine out with the trash. But there are more environmental options than the blue bag — specifically, companies that will take your machine off your hands for a small fee. In South Portland alone there’s Maine Labpack, (207) 767-1933; Enpro Services, (207) 773-0733; Clean Harbors Environmental Services, (207) 799-8111; and Fleet Environmental Services of Maine, (207) 774-2111. If you live outside of Portland, call your local Department of Public Works to see if they have a computer-recycling program.

And if all else fails, many manufacturers offer rebates and other incentive programs for recycling their old products. Read the fine print, though — the cost of shipping the stuff back may be prohibitive, versus the $50 credit you might accrue for your efforts.

Of course, computers are like any other innovation. The better we learn to use them, the more efficient and economic we can be in our consumption. If something’s broke, try to fix it. If something’s slow, try to tweak it. Upgrade components, rather than the entire system. Because computers may be getting smaller and smaller, but so is our planet.

Jess Kilby can be reached at jkilby@phx.com. “Technophilia” highlights the latest and greatest of the tech world and runs once a month.