Laptop recycling

Any advice please on best way for

1/ an old Dell that I can’t even get to boot up, so I can’t go through and reset. It was one of the kids so doesn’t have any proper data on it AFAIK (MS family account and I’ll be damned if I know how linked they are and whether someone could extract useful stuff to then access other family material), but still don’t want to just hit it with a hammer and put in landfill if I can avoid

2/ Old Chromebook. I have ‘Powerwashed’ it, is that good enough to then offer up on Freecycle or something. Or is there another level?

Hi,

For the Dell you should be able to take it apart and remove the hard drive and maybe just hit that with a hammer to be sure. Then wWe take all our old electronics to these people:

Homepage

They have bins outside for small items to be dropped off. There’s probably someone similar most places.

I have not used it but powerwash seems to be regarded as safe, otherwise you can do a full reset on chromebooks.

How old is the old Dell?  I can almost certainly resurrect it for you if a) it’s worth resurrecting and b) you can get it to me.

No idea about Chromebooks, I thought their USP was not relying on local storage.

Local repair cafe or the Restart Project. Plenty of not for profits out there who will secure wipe and then make it available to someone who lives in digital poverty.