Unfortunately, you can’t just chuck an old computer
in the garbage can and move on. Computers, like many electronics,
contain heavy metals that pose environmental hazards when
disposed of improperly. By doing any one of the following
steps, you’ll be able to get rid of that old computer
without losing any karma points.
Check for local recycling facilities in Bali.
Attempt to sell your computer. Put an ad (free) in the
Bali Advertiser!
Ask around to see if any of your friends are looking for an
older computer. Some tech-savvy people use extra computers
for print servers or e-mail stations.
Give it to your parents or grandparents and teach them how
to use email and surf the web. Old, slow computers work well
at these basic tasks.
Donate it to a local school.
Consider donating it to the nonprofit NGO.
Turn your old computer over to the manufacturer when you buy
a new one. Companies such as Dell and HP will now recycle
your old computer for free when you buy a new one from them.
Put a sign on your computer saying “Free old computer
- good for parts or case,” and leave it out front on
a dry afternoon.
Keep the old computer around as a backup.
Tips
Do any of the above steps, but just don’t throw that
computer into the trash. Computers are not biodegradable,
and mother nature won’t appreciate your contribution
of an unwanted PC.
A good way to leave the hard drive in a computer and not worry
about someone stealing your personal information is to create
several large files on the hard drive (to use up pretty much
all the available space) after deleting all your important
files, this will force the computer to write over the old
deleted information, and make sure no one can get to it.
An even more secure way to ensure total erasure of private
data is to use a secure erase utility; these can be found
online for most systems as free utilities. A secure erasure
utility not only deletes files but fills your occupied file
space with random or zero data. Many erasure utilities perform
this data filling several times over to completely eradicate
any magnetic ghost data that can be picked up by a data forensics
team. Try a free utility like Eraser : http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
Another way of totally erasing information from a hard drive
is to expose it to a very strong magnetic field. Hard Drives
are also known as magneto-optical drives, as the information
stored on them is done very much like a cassette tape - through
magnetism.
If you do not wish to consume time doing this, you could always
just take out the hard drive manually and reuse it yourself.
There’s no harm in keeping a backup hard drive around
for technological emergencies.
