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THE COMPUTER GRAVEYARD, PART 1
Do you have a closet or spare room that’s becoming a graveyard for obsolete computers? With the rapid pace of innovation in computer hardware and steadily declining prices, it’s often easier and cheaper to buy new hardware than to bring an old system up to date with a processor upgrade, more random access memory or a larger hard disk.

The result, though, is a growing pile of outmoded computers, some of which may be only a few years old. If this problem sounds familiar, you’re not alone. The National Recycling Coalition estimated that nearly 21 million personal computers became obsolete in 1998. They predict that as many as 500 million computers will reach obsolescence by 2007.

Disposing of old electronic equipment presents difficulties because of the toxic materials found in many components. According to the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, the list of toxic materials in computer components includes lead and cadmium in circuit boards, mercury in switches and displays, and from four to eight pounds of lead shielding in each monitor.

The Environmental Protection Agency considers old electronic equipment hazardous waste. Many states are following the lead of Massachusetts in prohibiting dumping of certain components, such as monitors, in landfills.

What can you do, then, with that outdated equipment stacking up in the computer graveyard? One good option is to donate it to a school, charity or nonprofit organization.

Market research firm Dataquest estimates that less than 5 percent of all obsolete computers are donated. There are, however, many nonprofit and charitable organizations looking for electronic equipment, particularly computers, to distribute to schools, community organizations and others who lack access to new equipment.

Finding an organization in your area that accepts computer donations will require some research on the Internet. The Share the Technology Web site ("www.sharetechnology.org"), which has a database of requests for donated equipment, is a good place to start. You can search the database by location, type of organization (public schools, nonprofit organizations or individuals) and type of equipment available (Apple Macintosh systems, IBM-compatible PCs or computer peripherals).

The National Recycling Coalition also maintains a list of reuse and recycling organizations throughout the United States. To obtain the list for your area, send an e-mail (indicating the state in which you live) to NRC’s Electronics Recycling Initiative at "electronics{at}nrc-recycle.org".

For other donation possibilities in your area, a query on your favorite search engine using the keywords "computer donation" and the name of your city or state should bring back good results.

Bear in mind that many organizations seeking donated equipment will not accept computers that have fallen too far into obsolescence. For IBM-compatible PCs, most organizations will only accept machines with Pentium-class processors. For Apple Macintosh computers, machines with 100-megahertz PowerPC processors or better generally are the standard.

Next month, we’ll look at trends in computer obsolescence and what you might expect for the future.

Joe Hoyle, electronic media editor, ADA Publishing, a division of ADA Business Enterprises Inc., "hoylej{at}ada.org".

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