As we have been getting ready for next weeks move, Waves of old laptops, tablets etc are surfacing. How do dispose of them. Should I pull the drives on the laptops?
As we have been getting ready for next weeks move, Waves of old laptops, tablets etc are surfacing. How do dispose of them. Should I pull the drives on the laptops?
Historically, I've pulled the drives and destroyed them separately while recycling the computers themselves via a municipal collection day.
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
Tablets, do a factory reset. That should clear any user data on them. At least if their manufacturers have any common sense. Generally this obfuscates the encryption key and creates a new one. Rendering the data useless. If your laptops have encryption on them, the same thing applies. If they don't, I'd do a multi-pass random overwrite pattern.. or physical destruction.
Recycling? Do they actually do that? I have a suspicion that it just gets tossed into the landfill here. Or shipped to another country, to be tossed into a landfill there.
~mike
happy in my mud hut
I used to do multi-pass (did I just hear LeeLoo's voice in my head?) overwrites on drives. Now I just drill them with a few holes and toss them in the electronics bin(s). There are places that take old laptops and PC's for those in need sans drives. If there are none in your area, electronics day disposal. If you live where there is no electronics drop off I would say you are far enough out there that you could just toss the things without feeling guilty.
Last edited by glenn bradley; 02-17-2023 at 11:04 AM.
"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".
– Samuel Butler
I pull the drives from things that have them, mechanically destroy them, and do factory reset on things like phones and tablets. The Habitat restore here has a bin for electronics recycling that accepts all of these devices, plus the many cables with now-obsolete cord ends for older stuff. I have some confidence that Habitat (or whoever they contract with for disposal) deals with the stuff responsibly. Best Buy stores also accept similar items. Pre-covid, a lot of e-waste went to china where they processed it to reclaim precious metals. Not sure where it goes now.
On a related note, the Habitat restore here also accepts latex paint for recycling at a small $1 per gallon can charge. The hazardous disposal sites here won't take latex paints; they instruct you to let them dry out or mix with sawdust or the like and then dispose in normal trash. That's OK I guess, and I do it for the occasional can, but after a recent clean-up day, I had about 20 gallon cans of old latex and it was worth it to me to get rid of it all quickly for the cost of a couple coffees.
--I had my patience tested. I'm negative--
There's a private company here takes old electronics for a small fee. My understanding was that unusable stuff gets sent overseas for child labor to take them apart to salvage usable electronic components and rare earth metals for re-use.
< insert spurious quote here >
The drives are easy to take apart and the discs make great small mirrors.
Apple stores will take them for recycling.
If the drives are removeable, destroy them. I would not let them out of my hands no matter what some organization says they will do with them. The easiest way to put holes in them is with an axe. Them soak them in water.
Maybe I don't keep a computer forever, but whenever I have upgraded, I've been able to find someone who can use my old computer. Because of that, I wipe my drive rather than destroying it.
I also know who I'm passing the computer on to and they are usually not knowledgeable enough to get anything off of the disk (or SSD) if I left anything.
After all, anyone who would want my old computer, by the time I upgrade, is not a power user
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
You're probably right if the water is pretty clean and it dries before something corrodes. I was going to suggest salty or dirty water or a splash of vinegar, but thought that was too much detail. I got my first computer that had a hard drive in the 1980's and still had all those old drives when I finally decided to get rid of them a couple of years ago. After drilling some holes and trying a few other things, I grabbed a hatchet and found it worked very well but wanted to make sure the disk platters themselves were destroyed.
Much obliged everyone. While the finer skills remain elusive, with hammers and axes I am quite proficient.