Responsibly recycle your used Dell and non-Dell equipment for free | Hacker News Reader

Responsibly recycle your used Dell and non-Dell equipment for free

recycling.dell.com

49 pointsCTOSian54 comments

Industry loves recycling / crushing machines because it removes working inventory from circulation. It's a very simple tactic to boost sales and the exact opposite of what is ecological.

Reuse, reduce, recycle.

Remember the Sonos "recycling" program? Deliberately brick old devices to get a discount on a new device.

Did they unbrick them once you returned them and make even more profit?

Nope, no return you just throw the perfectly good equipment in the bin. The hardware was still really good and perfectly usable, just intentionally bricked by Sonos. Ultimate waste.

A shame as I have lots of sonos equipment and otherwise I think they are great and their kit has good support and lasts a long time.

I was looking for some speakers recently and ended up getting very traditional tower speakers instead of anything sonos because I'm confident they will continue to work pretty much forever.

Home Audio, in terms of speakers and amplifiers, was "solved" in the 1980's and 1990's. A lot of this equipment will last for decades, is serviceable, and isn't dependent on the cloud.

This is so true and you can buy high quality gear for cheap on Craigslist, Kijiji, VarageSale or your local garage sale.

All of it has been solved though. Dumb screens, dumb speakers, removable batteries, etc.

Hell, even enclosed devices like the iPhone still last for almost a decade. I know, I had multiples ones in use for that long. So not being able to be serviced easily probably causes fewer problems than you’d think if people held on to devices for their maximum lifespan.

In terms of the speakers and amplifiers, absolutely. The home audio game's more than that these days though. Smartphone-controlled multi-room audio is convenient, if pricy.

I'm not a fan of planned obsolescence and I won't give money to sonos because of it. smartphone controlled multi room audio may be convenient, but I won't support it with dollars if it means perfectly working devices turn into bricks and get thrown in a landfill.

Shouldn't that be separate? If you buy a 10k speaker today, it's going to sound excellent in 10 years, but the software will long be dead, perhaps taking the speaker with it. Separating the smart from the speaker leads to cheap future upgrades of just the components you need.

its in your best interest if its separate, its in the manufacturer's best interest if you have to buy it again later.

I’ve known organisations who trashed old computers and wouldn’t even let staff get pieces without the HD (if data leaks were their concern).

I guess all industries are pushing the recycling line and not the reuse part.

I remembered that as reduce, reuse, recycle and had to look it up to see if there was a shift in priorities.

You also will struggle to find the latest software for enterprise equipment because updates are only for customers with support contracts. So you might be able to get an perfectly functional HPE server in the used market but there will be no legal way to update it with the latest bios and firmware.

There is a story to tell here beyond just conventional recycling computers...

One could be on the digital divide. For example, there are plenty of computers that may not even need recycling which could be given new life by installing a lightweight linux distribution. This opens up opportunities for folks on the tough side of the digital divide...because perfectly functional computers can be repurposed for lightweight use and donated to folks who can not afford computers.

Another approach could be for Dell to acknowledge to donor, "hey, we noticed that yo wish to recycle that computer...did you know that your machine can run Ubuntu, and maybe given new life? We even sell you a $10 support package for ubuntu, etc.?" Maybe this is not always possible, but there are cross-selling opportunities for Dell and Ubuntu here. (I say ubuntu not to exclude other linux distros but simply because Dell already sells computers loaded with ubuntu, so there's precedenct for support.)

I'm sure there are other options beyond the above...because just having a web form for conventional recycling almost feels...i don't know "disposable"? Am i crazy for thinking this?

I would love to see what the environmental impact of recycling a computer (and acquiring a new one with lower power consumption) versus buying a new one. I suppose that makes more sense for business than home, though.

On my thinkpad x200, I seem to use ~11-12 Watts doing normal usage.

For newer laptops, what would be the expected usage?

Similar, but with a much better perf/W. That's the biggest problem with old hardware. I'd love to be able to run old servers with dual cores and such in a big cluster, but 60W for an old CPU with 10% of the performance of a similar modern CPU is just not very attractive ):

If you aimed for similar class (ultraportable), you're going to be in pretty much the same ballpark. Ultraportable CPUs are normally in the sub 15W (peak) now, and screens are

The embodied energy of the laptop is high (estimate in the ~5GJ range) (http://conferences.sigcomm.org/hotnets/2011/papers/hotnetsX-...).

Ballparking now... assuming 5GJ of embodied energy, 20W power draw, 100% duty cycle, you'll need to run a laptop for about 8 years for its power draw to match its embodied energy. That means that changing laptops much more frequently than that will probably result in net higher energy consumption. Obviously, the lower the power consumption gets, the longer the "payoff" period becomes - this is why servers which might have 10x the embodied energy, but >40x the power draw are still economical to have more rapid hardware refresh cycles.

> If you aimed for similar class (ultraportable), you're going to be in pretty much the same ballpark. Ultraportable CPUs are normally in the sub 15W (peak) now, and screens are

I think this got truncated.

Reading random laptop review[1] claims to get >14h usage with 55 Wh battery, putting the average below 4W. Of course what constitutes normal usage varies, but I'd guess modern laptops would easily halve the energy consumption of your vintage one. And Apples new M1 laptops are yet much more efficient.

[1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Razer-Book-13-Core-i7-Laptop-R...

> installing a lightweight linux distribution

I don't even know how lightweight it needs to be. I am typing this on a Thinkpad x200 (laptop from 2008, Intel Core 2 Duo) with Debian Bullseye and MATE as it's DE. It does everything I need to do (Web browsing, SSH, development). I also didn't choose MATE for lightweight reasons, it's because I like it.

I also have a Thinkpad T61 and T60, and I have been meaning to bring those up and try them out, but my x200 works so well I haven't bothered to try yet.

Same here- my R61i (2008, C2D) was perfectly usable (if not blazing) on Debian 10 with Mate. I upgraded to a W500 (2009, also C2D) earlier this year and except for gaming, it's fine. I probably wouldn't run Gnome Shell on them, but all but the heaviest DEs seem to run acceptably (and much better than Windows 10) on decade-old hardware.

As someone who does this, you’re not wrong, but I don’t know how many lightweight Linux distributions your typical person who can’t manage to install Linux would be able to, or want to use, even with some support.

The only thing I could see working is if you basically made it like ChromeOS, a locked down, web browser based machine. Which actually wouldn’t be the worst idea considering most people just use their computers to go on the internet.

cough neverware cough https://www.neverware.com/

Unrelated, but I thought it was a satirical site for a minute, and it took me time to get convinced otherwise. There is something about the low stakes design and cookie cutter writing that makes it sound so off.

On what they do, yes, it seems to be a valuable service for companies that don’t directly manage their devices.

I installed lubuntu on a comically low powered AMD E-350 computer for my grandmother when her old desktop died.

Gave her a simplified desktop with a weather display and big icons for her email, her Facebook, and the obituary page of her hometown newspaper.

She transitioned to it just fine and only once in five years did I have to walk someone through the fsck process from what was probably hundreds of unclean shutdowns.

No doubt that there would be a wide spectrum of levels of acceptance...some folks even given a good optioon for support might choose to recycle their old machine because they're genuinely interested in getting the shiny newness...so offering any lightweight option with even cheap support won't be accepted by some folks...but i have to believe that there are folks out there who when *informed* that "hey, you know what? your computer is still usable for a little while longer..." might think twice before getting rid of their old machine.

And, BTW, if you're doing this already, then good on you! Kudos for helping avoid machines hitting the landfills, recycling centers unnecessarily!

Is your laptop still working? Then don't give it back to Dell. Sell or give it to someone else who can use it for another year or two.

Check out FreeGeek if you are in Portland. Offer it up to your local Buy Nothing group.

I am sure our HN ppl can recommend other places to send functional computer gear before sending it for recycling.

I kinda wish this stuff was saved in a warehouse somewhere in a deep cave. In a post-apocalyptic world, even a z80 microprocessor can put our tech tree 1000 years forward.

There are a few companies using old salt mines for preservation. I am sure they'd be happy to include a tech time capsule if you reached out to them.

If you showed somebody 1000 years ago a z80 - they would probably think it was jewellery - a broach of some-kind.

So how much knowledge would carry forward 1000 years from now, after all the tooling needed to reverse engineer a cpu like the z80 and working out how it is made, is going to be a huge effort.

Besides, I'm sure many would argue that a 6502 would push it forward a few years faster.

Now I want to watch a movie about a post-apocalyptic society where one's social status is based on the size and rarity of one's CPU-jewellery collection.

Oh I'm sure if Lady Gaga did it once, it would be chaos. I still recall living thru the era of https://blog.heritagepartscentre.com/blog/2016/03/15/remembe...

Didn't know that bit of history, thanks.

"The band made a brief comeback in 2004..." Err, I saw them live in 2007 and their last album was 2011.

A nice paper book about copper, electricity and discrete components.

Why not a plastic book, more chance of surviving.

I'm less concerned about someone from a thousand years ago, as I am about me. COVID21 (or nukes or insert your favorite apocalypse) sweeps through and wipes out 90% of mankind.

We instantly lose our ability to manufacture ICs, which rely on a complex tech tree and supply chain to feed many-billion-dollar fabs. We'd like to continue to be able to:

- Control industrial machinery

- Communicate with each other

- Balance out bank accounts

- Etc.

1996-era computers can do almost everything 2021-era computers can do from the perspective of keeping society running. I won't have 3d games or machine learning, but accounting, word processing, and similar are fine. Most of the changes in the past quarter-century were in how we use computers, more so than fundamentals.

Having a cache can mean the difference between being set back 1000 years due to systemic collapse, or being set back 50 years.

This isn't a time capsule thing. This is about immediate, operational resilience when the last of my computers breaks without supply chains.

The usual recyclers usually used extract most saleable hard drives, cards and memory. Some of these components have a long life in other places = $$, many recyclers fail to scrub, however responsible data practices should have this data well encrypted - but not always. Dell will contract to scrub drives but may not sell them?? Downstream recyclers will sell these. There is a large smelter, the Horne Smelter, run by Glencore https://www.glencore.com/what-we-do/recycling/operations There are others. These take mixed computers, printers etc and smelt them in a huge retort with flux and other materials. The steel is extracted, so is the copper, zinc, gold and other trace metals, They have an up-to-date fume scrubbed smelter with minimal pollution. The scrubbed fume dust is processed for other trace metals and then turned into a glass that is crushed and used for rockwool, asphalt etc,

Not available for US? They have an option to send old batteries back to them after a replacement but OOW machines are SOL.

https://corporate.delltechnologies.com/en-us/social-impact/a...

I think there should be a big message that says "Non-USA Consumers Only". If Dell were to offer this for the USA, my company/IT Department would ship them dozens of products a year to recycle, maybe hundreds when laser consumables are factored in.

"No pickup days are available for this location". What parts of the world are supported?

EU countries plus the UK are listed.

It's probably Dell's implementation of the legal requirement for them to recycle electronic devices. (WEEE directive.)

But not Ireland (which has a large Dell presence).

I have a 2011 Dell machine that I don’t know how to dispose. This is exactly what I am looking for. I don’t understand why there is so much cynicism in comments here. No one is telling you to recycle your 2 yr old machine.

I thought all the Dells went to Goodwill at the expense of all the other brands...

That's cool. I wish the page included any info one should consider before shipping of a computer containing potentially sensitive information on it.

Heh. Their terms and conditions are actually relevant for once.

> NOTICE REGARDING CUSTOMER DATA: You are responsible for removing all confidential data or data subject to applicable Data Protection legislation that may be stored on the Computer Hardware. Before pickup by the carrier, You are responsible for:

> (a) Deleting the data on the hard disk drives and any other storage devices in the Computer Hardware such as mobiles memories;

> (b) Backing up or transferring any data prior to deletion (if you want to keep the data); and

> (c) Removing any removable media, such as mobile cards, diskettes, CDs or PC Cards. Dell does not accept liability for lost or confidential data or any software.

I'd also be interested in some detail of the recycling operation. Are components reused when possible, and if so, under what selection criteria? If instead they are recycled for base materials, what processes are used for extraction and waste disposal?

If all I'm doing is exporting the problem to a corrupted country with lax environmenmtal laws, then it's not helping at all.

not available in USA...

Dude you’re getting a Dell!

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