How to Rescue Vintage Equipment from E-Waste Recyclers | VCFMW 19 (2024)

[@MrParrothead60450]

Great presentation. I started an e-waste business about 10 years ago and have gotten some pretty great stuff. Vintage stuff comes in slow, but the businesses are constantly churning machines. The vintage is a great reward, but the businesses are the bread and butter and then some. In my van I carry a hard drive crusher to offer free onsite hard drive destruction. It gets most of my business. Now I have a KZbin channel dedicated to vintage computers with a heavy lean on e-waste. And Board sort is a great business to deal with.

[@jmboyd78]

Thanks for posting, I missed this presentation.

[@SellamAbraham]

This is a great presentation. If you're a spaz, pay particular attention to his advice and you'll do well dealing with scrappers.

[@alphathefirstone1222]

I can see your concern but this is going to be a daunting task. Most of the electronic you state are not value outside of the "collector" community. Most recylers are going to reject saving these items becuase they are basicaly junk to the average person. They are worth more for the precious metals than usage. I am not sure if yall are enough (total collectors) will be able to slow this down or rescue those ewaste items. The precious metal demand will win over most.. Good luck !

[@tpcdude]

what will happen to all the 70's computers from the LCM in Seattle that just closed?

[@stephentrier5569]

They are being sold at auction with the proceeds going to charities.

[@williamharris8367]

At my very large institutional employer last year, several old PCs were inadvertently disposed of as garbage, rather than being properly wiped and decommissioned. This constituted a serious privacy breach because there may have been personal information on those hard drives.

[@williamharris8367]

Are there any collectors of other vintage electronics (i.e. not computers)? My local electronics recycler has a vintage console television (1960s?) sitting to one side of the facility. I have no interest, so I did not ask if it is for sale, but I assume that it is there for a reason.

[@Silent700]

There are collectors of almost everything out there. Old radios, televisions, vacuum cleaners, you name it. Facebook is probably the best place to find groups interested in a given category. The vintage CRT (television) scene is pretty active.

[@audiodood]

definitely, CRTs are certainly popular but just about anything will have someone interested lol

[@Arcadecomponentscom]

One thing the scrappers and recyclers should keep in mind would be the arcade community. Dell Optiplex 740, 580, and 380 computer motherboards can be repurposed for repairing several very popular games. These hold a lot more value than scrap if working.