How to recycle your computer/s

— filed under: Recycling

How to recycle your computer equipment at Computerbank
Recycling older and faulty computer items
Can I recycle my photocopier or TV with Computerbank?
Fees for obsolete or faulty equipment delivered to Computerbank West Melbourne
Fees for obsolete or faulty equipment requiring pick up
What happens to the personal data on the computer I donate?
Minimum recycling pickup requirements
Why do you charge fees for old and faulty equipment?
Preparing your equipment for recycling
What are your opening hours
Recycling and the environment
Email us if you have further questions

How to recycle your computer equipment

We need clean, neat, complete computers with these specifications or better. The pc's can be dropped off during our opening times. We will pick up donations of more than 5 working Pentuim 4 machines in the Melbourne area.

Pentium 4 1.6Ghz or Celeron 2Ghz and better
Memory - 256MB+ SD-RAM, 256MB+ DDR and 128MB+ RD RAM
Hard Disk capacity - 40 GB or better - we wipe all hard drives
CRT Monitors - 17" or greater, only with a working Pentium IV or greater computer. The monitor must be working and made in 2004 or later.
LCD monitors 14" or larger accepted (must be working)
Laptops - Working Pentium IV or better. Please remove any passwords (BIOS locks) on donated laptops. If password locks are not removed, we reserve the right to charge a fee.
Mice - Working Wheel Mice and Laser Mice urgently NEEDED
Cords and Cables - we are happy to take your excess cables.
Internal and external Modems - Lucent or Agere internal winmodem pci cards
Apple Macs G4 or better with original software
No Software disks - We don't need Windows disks. We erase and then reformat the computer hard drives with Ubuntu Linux and other free and open source software.

Email us: info@computerbank.org.au

Recycling older and faulty computer items

Computers that are Pentium 3's or older are recycled. This usually means the computer is more than 7-8 years old. Although we know some older computers still work we haven't as yet found anyone who wants them in a working condition.

We are lucky enough to get good quality newer machines. The newer computers we restore and sell from $30 to low income people. Some free computers are also provided.

Fees for obsolete or faulty equipment delivered to Computerbank West Melbourne:

Monitors

$11 each 14, 15, 17 inch working or non working CRT Monitor

Computers, printers etc

$5.50 each faulty computer or computers older than Pentium 4 or mac computers older than G4 dropped off
$5.50 each small printer or laptop, larger printers attract a higher fee
gold coin donation for other non working items

A tax invoice is provided, GST is included in all e-waste handling fees

Can I recycle my photocopier or TV with Computerbank?

No we cannot take these items.

Minimum recycling pickup requirements

We do not pick up less than 5 working Pentium 4 computers.

Computerbank cannot pick up low volumes of computers that just meet the minimum specification. There are charges for obsolete equipment see following....

Fees for obsolete or faulty equipment requiring pick up

Melbourne Metro areas only, extra fees apply if in rural/remote locations. Minimum pick up fee is $55.

Computerbank will invoice recyclers who incorrectly state equipment specifications

Monitors

$11 for each 14 and 15 inch monitor (min 5 depending on location)
$15 for each 17 inch monitor (min 5 depending on location)
$20 for each 20 inch monitor (we don't always have space for these)

Computers, Printers etc.

$5.50 per each computer (min 10 depending on location)
$11 - 22 per large printers and computers (ie servers)
$5.50 for smaller printers
$2 - 5.50 for other non working items
Due to the introduction of fees at the polystyrene compaction centre, we have introduced a 'packaging' surcharge. Please ask for details.

What happens to the personal data on the computer I donate?

All working hard drives donated to Computerbank are wiped using Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) software. This permanently removes all information from the drive.

Why do you charge fees for old and faulty equipment?

It is labour intensive to recycle old equipment. The obsolete items we receive are stored, checked then taken apart and sorted. Obsolete equipment is then delivered to a government sponsored recycling depot. The fee we charge you goes towards leasing the building and helping with our running costs. Computerbank is run by volunteers and only has one paid supervisor on any day.

If you do not want to recycle with Computerbank Victoria please try one these depots.

Preparing your equipment for drop-off

Recycling computers is labor intensive. Doing any of the following to prepare your equipment for donation will help us speed the processing and recycling of your equipment.

Bring as little packaging and boxes as possible. Please recycle the boxes for your equipment through your council's recycling program.
Untangle all cords and cables. Coil them up with a rubber band or twist tie.
Attach power adapters (AC adaptors, transformers) to their associated equipment (such as powered speakers, printers or external modems) as best you can, we suggest wrapping with clear packing tape.
No Packaging - The polystyrene compaction centre charges for packaging so we have a 'packaging' surcharge. Please ask for details.

What are your opening hours

Opening times 10-5pm Friday and Saturday.
Our address is 483 Victoria St (near Dyrburgh St), West Melbourne.

Recycling and the Environment

Computerbank Victoria is committed to the environmentally friendly recycling of e-waste.

We send faulty and excess CRT monitors to a Australian Government endorsed processing facility. Monitors are difficult to dismantle safely. They contain toxic materials and often have electric charges. They need to be dismantled in a safe manner. We will not allow our surplus monitors to go to overseas countries where they may be dismantled by unprotected children.
We send scrap metal (mainly empty cases) to metal recycler Southern Cross Metals.

We send old and faulty computer boards, power supplies, floppy drives, CD/DVD drives, CPU's, hard drives, cables and chips for metal extraction
We take polystyrene (from packaging that gets sent to us) to a compaction centre where it is eventually turned into picture frames.
Most of our plastics get turned into long life building products such as fence posts and pellets via Australian Composite Technology (ACT) Vic.
Despite our best efforts we have yet to find a solution for some of the waste that is generated (some plastic and lead glass) these end up as landfill once all recoverable material has been removed.