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How to safely dispose of an old Mac

by Dave Caolo Oct 15th 2007 at 11:00AM

The fun of technology is how quickly improved products are released. The downside is the same. So-called "E-Waste" is a huge problem. Before leaving that old Mac at the dump, consider these alternatives:
  1. Sell it. A couple of years ago, we wrote a very thorough how-to on selling an old Mac. You probably won't make a ton of money, but you will keep it out of the landfill.
  2. Apple's Recycling Program. Purchase a new computer from Apple and they'll accept your old computer, CRT or peripherals (from any manufacturer) into their recycling program. Simply pack up your old stuff (computers and monitors must be packed separately), bring it to a FedEx drop off point and away it goes. This offer applies to individuals and small businesses. Large corporations may participate in Apple Corporate Recycling.
  3. Freecycle. If you're unfamiliar with Freecycle, it's a way to give away items to those who need them (or, find something you'd like yourself). It reduces waste and the depletion of natural resources.
  4. Part it out. Even a "dead" computer has some good parts on it. Better yet, there are many people who just need that obscure part from your beige G3 All In One. Consider the Low End Mac Swap List when parting out a machine.
  5. Donate to a church or school. You might be sick of that Quadra, but kids will love it. Churches and other small organizations could use it for simple bulletins, etc. Heck, my daughter's preschool has an original Macintosh in the office that, according to the school secretary, still gets used.
These are just a few alternatives to adding to the ever-growing pile of E-Waste. We hope you found it useful.

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The fun of technology is how quickly improved products are released. The downside is the same. So-called "E-Waste" is a huge problem....
 

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17 Comments

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Blanka

To make sure my data became inaccessible, I lifted the lid of the hard drive, smashed the platters with a hammer, gave it a steel-brush treatment and put it to sleep with a huge speaker-magnet for the weekend. Do you think that erases data a bit?

October 20 2007 at 8:43 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jjd

Um, er, or possibly Tern Island. Both are just inside the barrier beach known as North Beach.

October 16 2007 at 7:10 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jjd

charles - the picture looks like strong island in chatham, massachusetts on cape cod. I grew up there, and used to work for an aerial photographer, so I should recognize it!

October 16 2007 at 7:05 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John Konopka

In the San Francisco Bay area Goodwill Industries will accept electronic equipment. If they can't make use of it they say they'll properly dispose of it. Not sure how wide spread this practice is.

October 16 2007 at 1:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
charles

Where is that aerial photo taken?

October 15 2007 at 8:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dappleganger

Just gave our new church my Cube...but then again, I'm the communications/media/tech person so get to maintain it, hehe. The only pc's used are the laptops by the 2 pastors, but the rest of us all use Mac. If they didn't, I'd probably have to work for someone else!

October 15 2007 at 6:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Pabjvar

I'm a student and I would appreciate any donations... if not... thats ok.. I've been saving to buy one soon... but if anyone would like to donate... I could use my saving to eat well... anyhow I just post this comment just to see if I have luck...

October 15 2007 at 5:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Simon Arch

I'll second Donald's recommendation. Clean your hard drive well before you ship it off. Chances are nobody's going to run a file recovery app on it, but you can't count on that.

Older versions of the OS had an option in the Disk Setup utility to do a low-level format. It would take 9/10 of forever, but it would overwrite every sector of a disk, rendering recovery of old data almost impossible. Certainly a casual "undelete" utility would find little of value.

In OS X's Disk Utility there's an option to do something similar. You can tell it to write ones and zeros to your drive up to something like forty times. Overkill for everybody but the hyper-paranoid and DOD types.

October 15 2007 at 3:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Moitah

And you forget http://www.screenrecycler.com/home.html !

October 15 2007 at 12:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Oliver Chesler

No doubt this post is for Blog Action Day (http://blogactionday.org/). If you allow me here's my post about the environment. And to keep it relevant we use 100% Macs in the studio and live. We use Ableton live mostly: http://www.wiretotheear.com/2007/10/15/10-ways-a-musician-can-help-the-environment/

October 15 2007 at 12:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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