A good while back, I mentioned an organisation that allowed companies and individuals to donate old or unwanted computers to charity – they’d be refurbished and sent off to a worthy cause.
Microsoft Ireland has mentioned a program in their blog today. Anyone in the Microsoft Authorised Refurbisher program will take an old machine, refurbish it, stick Microsoft software on it and give it to a school, charity or community program. The list of Irish operators is here and the International directory is here. Watch out though; some of them are commercial operations, some are not-for-profit and some are charities.
This way you can have:
- A genuinely environmentally friendly program for getting rid of your unwanted hardware – we all suspect that recycled computers just end up in a landfill in China or India anyway!
- You get good marketing material.
- You might be eligible for tax breaks – I’m not an accountant so consult an expert on that.
- Someone worthy who needs a PC will get one.
If you’re worried about data security then wipe it securely using something free like DBAN which will overwrite that data numerous times with junk data. They also have a commercial product for regulatory compliance.