1. As individuals we can recycle kit.
2. In our companies we can use what influence we have to make sure kit is recycled.
3. As IT sales people I guess you can’t just stop selling them! Maybe a recycling program can feature in the service though?
4. As s/w / infrastructure designers we could aim to keep stuff runable on old kit (it won’t make you popular with your h/w sales team if you have one!). Also, unless you support the latest interfaces it makes your product look old.
5. Perhaps the hardest option is that at home and in the office we can choose not to keep up with the latest kit. On the bright side that means when you do need to upgrade you can either go for cheap recycled (not creating more waste) or super state of the art  (not needing updating so often).

Hmm, that’ll be recycled at home and state of the art at work please

A friend (no really) has a couple of PC’s they want to pass on but the friend is an accountant (see it is a friend & not me) and they want to make sure the disks are sanitised of any confidential data before they let them go. I had a google and came up with eraser at http://www.heidi.ie/node/6 . Is it safe idea to use freeware for your security?

 I’d go for the “boot nuke disk” but I guess that leaves no OS for the next user. Still that resolves any licence issues too. Any other suggestions as to what to use and how?

If you’ve not come across this guy check out

Freecycle is a wonderful scheme. An email list that lets people advertise stuff they don’t want or ask for stuff they need. No money or even swapsies must take place then it’s all clear from tax / liability / .. You just say:

I’m getting a new wardrobe, anyone want the old one?

Or

My sons grown out of his bike its yours if you want it

 AND

My sons grown out of his bike has anyone got a bigger one?

Hopefully someone will say “yes please” and arrange to come and collect it.

The prime aim of freecycle is to keep stuff out of landfill but in doing so it also reduces emissions from manufacturing and helps out if you are a bit strapped for cash.

The down sides are people don’t always turn up when they say they will, sometimes people don’t have transport and you end up delivering (your choice and you’d probably have had to take stuff to the tip anyway) and I seem to have collected more spam since I signed up (I don’t blame freecycle as such but I suspect yahoo groups are a popular email harvesting area). Also people can get ratty with each other in any situation so you might get a flame war about “the sofa was advertised as nearly new but smells of poo”, but it isn’t likely.

You will get a full inbox (there is a digest option but I’m getting 30-ish mails a day). And you may well get a full house / garage / shed. We all join to get rid of stuff but then the “Oh no, I can’t let someone send that to the tip, I might need one one day” kicks in

Maybe I’m not so much avoiding land fill as turning my house into one…

http://www.freecycle.org/ & groups in your area or http://freecycle.org/display.php?region=United%20Kingdom