How to Safely Dispose of your Old PC

Dispose/Recycle it

By now another easy solution may have crossed your mind; why not just leave it outside with the rest of your trash? Well, it is an option, and it may seem like the easiest solution, but it’s actually worse than stockpiling your relic in the garage.

Computers contain many dangerous chemicals such as arsenic, nickel, lithium, cadmium, chromium and mercury. Not just that, these days less precious metals and more plastic are being used in computers, which make it worth less and more difficult to recycle. Some of the plastic is PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride), which is the least environmentally friendly plastic around.

To make insult to injury, here come the monitors. There is a reason why these things are heavy. They contain lead to protect you from radiation. Average CRT monitors or TV contains about 5 pounds of lead. End up in a landfill, lead-coated glass can contaminate ground water, causing detrimental effect on children who are exposed to it. Thus a standard monitor classifies as hazardous waste.

To prevent those horrible things from happening to our environment, you need to dispose your PC properly. The problem lies not only with the computer however. Most of us are used to the behavior of solving our problem with no regards for others. In this case, our problem is how to get rid of the heap of junks in our garage, and usually we don’t care if our solution creates another problem. We need to change this way of thinking right away.

Governments are already strongly regulating the materials that go into electronics, and take the issue of electronic disposal more seriously. In Germany, for instance, the Product Recycling and Waste Management Act hold computer manufacturers responsible for the disposal of computers and their components. Therefore, manufacturers have included a small fee for recycling to the regular price of their products.

Some companies like IBM, HP, and Apple have implemented ‘take-back’ programs. Once you’re finished with your computer, they will help to dismantle and recycle it. This is the result of the more strict regulations in Europe and anywhere else in the world concerning the detrimental effect of hazardous computer components to our environment.

Hardware manufacturers are already starting to help stem the flow of electronic waste. Many have provided programs that make recycling easier for consumers and that offer incentives such as discounts on new purchases for customers who recycle. Such facility is still rare in many developing countries though, but we are sure hopeful they will catch up soon.

Remember to erase your hard drive

Should you decide to sell, donate or dispose of your computer, please pay special attention to your hard drive. Your hard drive contains whatever information you have put in it. Some might be important or private, and other people might be curious to take a look. Before you say goodbye to your little precious hard drive, you should take some precautions to protect your personal information from getting into the wrong hands.

Not many realize though, simply deleting files in your hard drive won’t do you any good. It will only remove the pointer in your hard drive to the file without actually deleting the data. Deleted files can be restored very easy. Formatting your hard drive is not a solution either. People with moderate knowledge of file system can retrieve your data later.

Your best bet would be using a file shredder. File shredder works by repeatedly overwrites data in your hard drive to ensure that it can’t be recovered. There are a lot of such utility programs available as freeware on the internet, and they are relatively easy to use. Some people might go a little bit farther of removing a hard drive from the computer and smashing it with a sledge hammer to destroy all data in it. Well, despite the fact that it is an option (not to mention it is fun); it only applies if you decide to dispose of your computer, of course. No one would find any use of a smashed hard drive.