Donate Your Old Hardware and Give Your Machines a Second Lease on Life

Those of us in the tech space are traditionally hardware junkies. If we don’t have the latest and greatest, we’re somehow failing in our job to be leaders in the industry. Computers, monitors, laptops, PDAs, cell phones … we burn through them all like wrapping paper on Christmas morning. But what happens when we’ve outgrown the use for a particular machine? Often times we let it gather dust in the closet or worse yet – send it to the landfill. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, in 2005, discarded electronics totaled about 2 million tons. It’s estimated that only about 15 to 20 percent of this was recycled. (Source: http://www.greenerchoices.org/electronicsrecycling/el_ewaste.cfm)

Machines that aren’t good enough for our purposes are often adequate for the average to low-end user. Rather than letting older machines go to waste or being disassembled for scrap, donating old machines is a fantastic way to give your machine a second life. And, you can get tax benefits.

In my own attempts to think green and not pitch my old machines, I discovered the National Cristina Foundation (http://www.cristina.org/), “a not-for-profit foundation dedicated to the support of training through donated technology.” The National Cristina Foundation matches your listing with partners around the country who can use your equipment . I recently donated an iMac and a Windows laptop by listing it through this service, and was told the latter was given to a returning Iraq veteran.

73.6% of the population of North America is online (source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). While we have come a long way, we still have a long way to go before we can consider it ubiquitous. So whether your old machine ends up in the hands of a veteran, an elderly-shut-in, or a child from a lower-income family, you can make a difference for someone who needs a computer, while reducing the amount of waste in our environment.