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Hello from a computer recycling dude!

D

dreddnott

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2006
Messages
318
Location
Hesperia, California, USA
I work for a large electronics recycling company in Victorville, California and I run into probably the widest selection of vintage and antique computers and other electronics every day.

I just thought I'd introduce myself and let you know I'm going to start posting in the Collections forum.

FYI: I hate this company but the stuff that we get in is amazing. I just thought you guys might like to know, and maybe I can get some of the fancier stuff posted on eBay dirt cheap if there's interest. I'd hate to see some of these systems get destroyed for all eternity.
 
Welcome to the forums!

Please post descriptions and/or images of what you get in!

Even if someone here can't help we'd love to see those items rescued from "demanufacturing!"

I'm sure I could drive down from San Jose for the right stuff. :)

Welcome aboard!
 
Can you as an employee opt-out stuff that came in for destruction, or would you put things aside hoping nobody noticed? I suppose very few things can be reused as they are, so it is more a matter of recycling the metals and other elements from the electronics.

A few years ago, it was suggested over here that the recycling station should have one depot for charity rather than recycling. Everyone would get to select where to dump their stuff. They already collect old clothes to charity at the recycling station, but electronics, furniture and all other stuff you would have to contact the charity yourself. Some people voiced their concern that stuff meant for destruction would be reused by someone else. Now, a week ago I read that in small scale they will conduct a test with charity depot for some of these items. Last time I went there, I saw some of the PCs going to recycling and wondered to myself if they were faulty and exactly how much more recent than my parents' computers they were. If it would be legal, I had asked to open them up and for a small amount buy video cards, maybe hard disks and anything else I expect still working. Heck, I could even buy the recycled computer for a small amount, pick the working parts and then recycle it again, if the recycling company in the other end will melt it down anyway. They would get a few gram less semi-conducting material, but the station could forward my money to them as part of the payment.
 
My job title is Quality Assurance Technician, so my job is to identify items that can be refurbished and resold - typically this means hard drives over 10GB (we've had up to 120 or 160 gigs occasionally), socket Pentium III and higher CPUs, 64MB+ RAM sticks (128MB and 256MB are very common), some video cards, SCSI controllers, etc.

I test gobs and gobs of hardware every day. Most of it I say 'bye bye' to, of course, because the volume is far too great for a single tester (me). I cherry-pick what I can while trying to snag the stuff that will make us the most money. If I say that such-and-so computer can be resold for $XXX even though it's from #### year, they'll definitely let me take it. It's really a question of having enough space upstairs.

95% of the intact (non-stripped) computers that come in fire right up when I plug them in and turn them on. It's just that they won't run Windows XP right, or they're bogged down with spyware, or perhaps the monitor blew and they think that's the end of their computer. We also get Apple-manufactured computers purchased by educational institutions in VAST quantities. I don't even blink anymore when I see two pallets absolutely packed with the blue G3's and their 17" studio displays. I don't even touch monitors unless they're super-high-quality 22" professional displays, or, in the case of LCDs (which are harder to come by), 17"+. We make 48 cents PER POUND of the glass in a CRT. That alone is reason enough to recycle them in mass quantities!
 
Although I have never been near, much less worked in a recycling facility, your workplace sounds very much unlike how it works here. I have never heard about the recycling place strips off parts that can be sold (through what channels - eBay?) or even donated to charity. If they do test the equipment, maybe they have a very local flea market on the working stuff. I always had the impression everything is sorted based on what elements it is made of, and then melted down and filtered into raw metals which are sold.
 
Actually, 98% of the disassembly done by the demanufacturing crew is completely destructive. Hard drives are smashed with hammers to ensure that they will never work again (also helps to fulfill Certificate of Destruction requirements), plugs cut from cables and both thrown in separate boxes, etc.

We sell these sorted boxes as 'commodities' to whoever pays the most per pound, and they do the processing. In a sense we're a middleman for the more final processors, but we take a much greater interest in the junk that can be refurbished and sold on eBay or to local business interests. Most melter/smelter operations wouldn't blink at melting down modern Athlon 64 desktop PCs, let alone a vintage Apple!
 
Yeah, the first part sounds like I suppose they work over here. It is the part about rescuing stuff that still has some market value as it is which sounds different, but I know there are stores specialized on selling refurbished computers. Maybe part of their intake comes from recycling stations, as opposed to companies paying money directly to the store to get rid of old computers.

(Yes, at least here it costs money for companies to throw old equipment - it is the money that goes to the recycling place, who in their turn sell the chopped up parts)
 
dreddnott said:
I work for a large electronics recycling company in Victorville, California and I run into probably the widest selection of vintage and antique computers and other electronics every day.

I just thought I'd introduce myself and let you know I'm going to start posting in the Collections forum.

FYI: I hate this company but the stuff that we get in is amazing. I just thought you guys might like to know, and maybe I can get some of the fancier stuff posted on eBay dirt cheap if there's interest. I'd hate to see some of these systems get destroyed for all eternity.
Click to expand...

dude that's a pretty cool job. do you come across any macs?
 
dreddnott said:
Actually, 98% of the disassembly done by the demanufacturing crew is completely destructive. Hard drives are smashed with hammers to ensure that they will never work again (also helps to fulfill Certificate of Destruction requirements), plugs cut from cables and both thrown in separate boxes, etc.

We sell these sorted boxes as 'commodities' to whoever pays the most per pound, and they do the processing. In a sense we're a middleman for the more final processors, but we take a much greater interest in the junk that can be refurbished and sold on eBay or to local business interests. Most melter/smelter operations wouldn't blink at melting down modern Athlon 64 desktop PCs, let alone a vintage Apple!
Click to expand...

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
 
dreddknott

dont let any of your guys smash anything vintage with a hammer or I might have to come after them with an ax

sell them here, please

thanks
 
I keep a thread going in the "Your Collections" forum - there's a lot of "vintage" stuff that I let go simply because we constantly get more. For instance, I've seen more Commodore 64's than probably all of you put together, unless you happened to work in their factory in the early eighties...

And DOS-Master, to answer your question, yes, I get a VERY significant quantity of Apple equipment, Macintosh and otherwise. Everything from the Apple ][e to the Macintosh 512K to PowerMac G3s, as educational institutions are always swapping out their equipment. I had a couple of early Mac clones that I probably should have rescued (one was a UMAX as I recall), but oh well.
 
Compact Macs

Compact Macs

If you find any compact Macs (such as the Mac 512) SELL THEM!!! Most compact Macs go for a reasonable price on eBay, and there's a vintage mac forum (namely, the 68k Macintosh Liberation Army) who will gobble up ANY compact mac, and probably traverse continents for an SE/30. So would I, for that matter. I'd join the 68kMLA, but I don't have enough (working) Macs to qualify, I think. (That or I can't be bothered).

MoonShadow
 
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