I’ve been accumulating old electronics for about a decade now and I really need to safely dispose of them at this point. I know some cities have drop off spots for recycling, but the one near me charges a fee and appears to cater to business clients. Obviously I’m against tossing them in the bin. It’s small things, like an old iPod touch, Bluetooth speaker etc. What do you all do with your old Ewaste?

Edit: Whew. I’m tired after a long day of…you guessed it…work. Great suggestions in this thread. Thanks y’all!

  • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.mlEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    I try to repurpose as much of my old electronics as I can.

    One old laptop and an old iMac are now Pi-Holes running Ubuntu Core, blocking ads and ensuring that if one of them goes down, the other will be there to take requests.

    I have a couple old desktop PCs running stuff, too. I have turned one into a basic NAS with TrueNAS and have another for testing various setups before moving them to “production.”

    I have an old SteamLink still kicking and still using it as a SteamLink, works great.

    Old phones I turned into webcams placed in numerous places so I can have the camera’s “follow” me throughout my place during a video-chat.

    I turned an RCA Cambio tablet into a “television” for my tiny kitchen, mounted on the wall and always connected to my Plex server.

    Sooooooooo many electronics still work when they’re past useful as a “daily driver.” I try my best to find places for them, and I hold on to extra parts that still work and sometimes build PCs for people who can’t afford one. That way they can have something relatively recent and functioning. With older hardware, you can still get modern operating systems on there with the likes of Xubuntu and Lubuntu, both which run pretty well on older/underpowered hardware (Lubuntu for real old low end stuff).

    There used to be a great local electronics recycler here that I would drop off stuff that was officially End of Life in that it stopped working, but they went out of business during COVID and I haven’t found a proper replacement yet. Best Buy only takes limited items and only a limited amount.