I’ve got two old PCs that I’m trying to give away to charity. It’s a lot yharder than I thought it would be. I’d like to do the right thing but the local tip is looking more and more appealing.

Charities tend to be quite specific in what they are after! Try Freecycle?

Charities tend to be quite specific in what they are after!

if you had ever seen the waste bill for a charity you would understand why – they pay commercial rates – and a lot of stuff people donate is unsaleable

there are a couple of local charities that send PCs to africa/ cuba / south america…

There are charities that recycle stuff but make sure you’ve cleans out your harddrive before you give anything away, just to be on the safe side.

My dump has a separate area for working stuff and it gets used or passed on to someone – and I don’t think it’s the employees’ mates.

I thought they were very fussy about electrical items. You could try giving it away on freecycle

It’s not worth the hassle IMO, you need to wipe the drives (with several passes) to have any confidence in your data being unrecoverable (and even then it’s not guaranteed). So you’d then need to reinstall the OS to pass it on in a usable condition, probably be cheaper all around to dump it at the approved tip and give the charity a donation…

you need to wipe the drives (with several passes)

Darik’s Boot and Nuke – DBAN

I wouldn’t bother reinstalling the OS or anything. Any charity that makes a business of taking PCs would wipe it anyway to avoid licensing issues. Just wipe it and pass it on.

I had to get shot of two pretty old pc’s last week. I managed to get shot of them by leaving them adjacent to the front gate with some other odds & sods destined for the tip.

The bloke even knocked on the door & asked if he could take them. Obviously, I’d already removed the hard drives. Much better than dumping them as the cases if nothing else would get reused (apparently)

My missus runs a charity shop. They won’t accept any electrical items as they need to pay to get them PAT tested before they can sell them. Given what they earn from them, it’s not cost effective.

Freecycle is likely your best bet.

I’ve got a friend who runs a charity specialising in recycling IT kit for those who can’t afford it – they’re based in Edinburgh if that’s anywhere near you and are always on the look-out for kit to pass on.

http://www.passitoncomputers.co.uk/

Last time I had to get shut of some old PCs, a local school took ’em. That was a while ago, mind.