hardware recycling

[Colin McGregor]

--- Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On 9/12/06, Madison Kelly <linux-5ZoueyuiTZhBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >    My b/f is looking to get away from programming
> and into the hardware
> > recycling business. This isn't exactly a huge
> industry, so I was hoping
> > you guys might be able to help him out.
> 
> Unfortunately, the obsolescence rate of computer
> hardware has, if
> anything, increased over the last couple of years.

No, we seem to have hit something of a plateau for
now. Hardware is NOT being rendered obsolete as
quickly as times gone by. So what if the newest CPU
chip will make MS-Word (or other MS trash) run 50%
faster, it will not make a secretary type any faster,
a fact well understood by most businesses. Thus
organizations like the one I am with have been seeing
fewer donations.

What is also happening is that new hardware costs for
a decent performing new boxes is dropping, so the
residual value on old boxes has been going through the
floor.

> There is a sense in which this is a "growth
> industry," namely that
> people, in being in some senses, more
> 'environmentally aware,' think
> it's more important than it used to be.
> 
> But the ability to actually reuse old hardware has
> been falling.
> Colin McGregor can doubtless speak to this with
> considerable
> authority...  He was with one of these
> organizations, and has been
> watching the economics get worse, not better.

Yes, this past weekend I was helping sort through over
1,500 PCs donated to the Toronto Free-Net separating
out the not-so-good from the total trash (there were
some '386SX boxes and '486 boxes among the machines
donated, machines whose value can be measured in the
cents per lb. the Free-Net can get from a scrap metal
dealer...). 

Things MAY change post the release of MS Vista,
assuming MS can convince (do a snow job on?) a large
number of firms that the hardware demands of Vista are
worth meeting. I doubt even MS's marketing department
can convince enough firms to go to Vista to make a
major change. As stands, for the foreseeable future
hardware recycling is a bad business, one to stay away
from and a business I want out of...


Colin McGregor

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