Recycling Computers

This should have been posted Earth Day ,but I'm a little late.

I've moved around. Often. I've also drug around FOUR non-working desktop computers with me because I was afraid of throwing them away which is super bad (technical terms) for the environment or the possibility of someone finding them and mining my old hard drives for personal information. Knowing that sophisticated data recovery services can find even "erased" information, you can see how I have been hesitant to let go of these machines.

This past week I finally decided to do something about that. If you are a little more tech-y, there is a program you can use called WIPE that wipes clean the hard drives. Another resource is Boot and Nuke. Standard recommendation is 4 wipes to clean the hard drive. Department of Defense recommends seven wipes to clean the hard drive, I believe.

For an Apple machine go to spotlight, choose "disk utility" then select your drive and choose erase. For more help, we all know Apple has the incredibly wonderful Genius Bar.

If I am incorrect on any of this information, please feel free to add/correct in the comment so we can all learn from this.
Then I went online to each manufacturer and found they would PAY for the shipping for ME to return the machine and they would properly dispose of it. All I had to do was print the air bill, package it up and drop it off at FedEx or UPS depending on the manufacturer.

The links I used to print the air bills are:

HP: http://hp.ecotakeback.com/

Dell (with separate links for toner, ink and printer recycling): Dell Recycling

Compaq: Compaq recycling linked with HP and also takes back cell phones of any manufacturer, rechargeable batteries and ink and toner cartridges.

Apple: Apple recycling From my understanding, Apple will take back any iPod or cell phone, regardless of manufacturer, but only takes back the computers if you buy another Apple computer and select "opt in" at the time of purchase. (Anyone care to speak to this?)

I feel better and lighter! Now if I can just keep some of these books moving along....