Recycle that old PC

Life

When I had to throw out my old 286 PC workhorse after ten years of service, I faced the sad dilemma of what should I do with it. 

The binmen don’t want to take it away. So I pulled out the yellowing cables and broke the unit up into it’s separate components: Screen, keyboard and box. Or in my case, two boxes, since my original CPU gave up the ghost and needed be supplemented by a new motor supplied by Multi Tech, the computer hospital. It had a hard drive by-pass, if you like.

I live in a an area with lots of old houses and overgrown gardens, not to mention overflowing skips, as gentrification takes hold. Next to me is a back garden, where some sheds were demolished to make way for trendy mews apartments. In the meantime, they don’t mind you dumping stuff there—old cookers, chairs, that kind of thing. So into this ignoble company, I dumped my old PC, sending it crashing over the wall. The screen was still a relatively new monitor, so I gave it to an interested neighbour: ‘Oh great’ she said ‘Can I just plug it in now and use it?’ Yes, I told her dubiously, but you’ll need an actual computer and stuff. ‘Oh really’ she said, genuinely. You see, not everyone is familiar with the world of PCs. However, the amazing thing, in this case, is that the girl has an email address and has been using the free internet facilities at the local library. Hello?

Desktop Clutter
I thought about keeping the keyboard, because a techie friend told me that it was an old style, clackety-clack keyboard with sharp instant responses. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured adoringly and he started roaming his hands over it like Liberace on the grand piano. But when I offered it to him, he said he didn’t need it ‘just yet’. I get a lot of this: People asking me to ‘hold onto’ my rubbish for them. So, I chucked out the keyboard. Besides, the keys were dirty through constant use and the beige had turned to a sort of black. Still, I felt sad throwing it away. My fingers had been on it for over a decade, making a million commands and tapping out lots of characters, in both senses of the word. It is a tactile, almost sensuous thing, this human-to-keyboard relationship and, in using it, the tips of my fingers had become hard like those of a pool typist of old. 

Afterwards, I thought that perhaps I should have given the entire unit to Fingal Recycling, a worthy project set up to collect the secondhand PCs of owners who are upgrading to new machines, so that old PCs can be passed by them on to less affluent people. The initiative is a joint venture between Dublin’s four local authorities, Apple Computers, FAS, and the Sunflower and Heat projects that tackle long term unemployment and disadvantage. Fingal Recycling do not so much hand on whole PCs—in my case, not an option since the machine was so old—but they break the machines down for their reusable parts. 

This takes care of one of the main anxieties people would have about passing on their old models: What still lurks hidden on the hard drives and the question of keeping personnel files confidential. Fingal Recycling ‘drill’ or ‘shred’ the drives so that their contents will never be accessible or usable again. I must say this was one of my own concerns before I dumped my machine. As it happened, I ended up transferring the old document files I wanted to keep over to my new Packard Bell PC while erasing all the files I didn’t want, but it was a laborious task. I remember a story about a freelance journalist who bought a secondhand PC and, when he looked into the hard drive, he realised that it had previously belonged to a leading member of Youth Defence, the militant Pro Life group. Inside were saved letters, seeking funds from controversial US groups. The guy had a story and duly wrote up the details for publication! Always be careful about what’s on your hard drive, before giving it to a stranger. 

Recycling e-rubbish
It seems we’re going to hear a lot more about projects like Fingal in the near future. The European Union is predicting that electronic waste will grow at three times the rate of domestic waste in the coming years. That’s a lot of old PCs clogging up the skips. And under new EU rules, all electronic and electrical goods will have to be recycled. So no more dropping PCs over a neighbours wall. In future, even the most antiquated of models will be getting a new life—or lives. Keep on clacking away!

Read More: PC & Peripherals