What happens to obsolete equipment?
A small proportion of the equipment donated to Computerbank is older or broken equipment. We responsibly recycle this equipment.
We frequently receive requests to send equipment for recycling overseas. Most of these recycling plants are unsafe, some even use children to dismantle this dangerous equipment. To date no overseas company has provided us with a international standards safe work practice certificate. We do not send any equipment for recycling overseas.
This is how we process equipment we cannot reuse:
- We send faulty and excess CRT monitors to a Australian Government endorsed processing facility. Monitors contain toxic materials and often have electric charges. They need to be dismantled in a safe manner.
- We send scrap metal (mainly empty cases) to a metal recycler.
- We collect old and faulty computer boards, power supplies, floppy drives, CD/DVD drives, CPU's, hard drives, and chips and send them for metal extraction.
- We send faulty and excess cables and leads for copper extraction.
- Most of our plastics get recycled into long life products such as fence posts, bollards, shipping dunnage, board deck rail and planks through Australian Composite Technology.
- All other equipment we do not reuse at Computerbank is safely dismantled and recycled in Australia.
Charges for obsolete equipment
We charge a fee for obsolete equipment. The enables us to pay for the rent of our building, and to sort and deliver material to recycling facilities. If you do not want to recycle with Computerbank Victoria please try one these depots.
