DownUnder in new zealand was one time a year pickup not this year may be next year and send back to China or it end up in land full not so good

There are a few companies & organizations that recycle like this, but DO check out any you're considering donating to -- I've read of more than one that melts down the boards for the gold content etc., then dumps the rest into toxic landfills in parts of the developing world without any regs.

FWIW I gradually update our PCs rather than buying complete systems, e.g. the same case might be re-used for 3 - 10 years, & hang onto most of the old parts -- when I have enough old parts I'll assemble them into a full PC we give away to someone less fortunate. Lots of people do the same I think, either assembling parts or giving away old PCs -- I only mention it because it doesn't always occur to folks that their old PC parts might be assembled into something someone else needs. Likewise people we know &/or work with don't advertise it if/when they're really struggling just to keep a roof over their family's heads, food on the table etc., so we might never realize how welcome a gift our old PC may be.

Some company also offers trade of your old computer to a new one at affordable price, this is the think the easiest way to market their product and environmental campaign of green ideas from recycling old products. Some even converting , from other industrial and electronic waste.

Lee,

Sorry to hear of your bad experience. From what I have heard of it, the system seems to work quite well DownUnder. It may be a regional issue.

I applied for a PC about 4 years ago.

I was kept in touch of when the delivery date was about to start of units, then received an email stating, they are stopping the service as they believe that people will sell them.

I wanted it for a school classroom at my fiances school, so it was a big let down.

UK:
http://www.cit.org.uk/computeraid <-- parking site.
http://www.computersforart.org/ <--site is a referral
http://www.jamiescomputerclub.org.uk/about.shtml <-- for homeless stuff Southampton.
http://www.recycler.vze.com/ <-- page not found
http://www.rei.org.uk/ <-- more a training site like the one in Southampton.

Nigera has currently got mountains upon mountains of computers in dumps as they are not needed.

Sometimes these projects are useless.

Usually they are governemnt funded which rakes in the money rather than receiving donation PC's.

Infact probably be better for the charities or organisations to mass buy from a company like Dell and get em for £250 each.

Those of you with extra or old units around the house, why not donate to some of these organizations? Virtually all of them provide free computers to kids, schools, disabled individuals, elderly and low-income families.

Don't hesitate just because the unit is old. One option, even for an old i386 with 8MB of ram, is to run Linux .. check the 'Tiny Linux' project, http://tiny.seul.org/ , for more information. Even if the computer has no hard drive, it can be used as a 'nix diskless workstation. Anything is better than dumping several pounds of lead, beryllium, mercury, cadmium, and brominated-flame retardants into the environment!

World-Wide Locations:

http://www.worldcomputerexchange.org/

Australia:
http://vic.computerbank.org.au/
https://greenpc.infoxchange.net.au/shopcart/browse.chtml

Austria:
http://www.vum.at/

Brazil:
http://www.cdi.org.br/

Canada:
http://www.era.ca/
http://freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/ecnweb/Donations.htm
http://www.computersforschoolsontario.com/defaultenglish.html
http://www.cscwec.com/

France:
http://www.co-ordinateur.org/

Germany:
http://www.reuse-computer.de/

Indonesia:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sejutakomputer/

Japan:
http://www.jca.apc.org/index.html

Portugal:
http://www.edvdigital.pt/edvsolidario

Spain:
http://www.renuevate.com/teso/

Switzerland:
http://www.revamp-it.ch/

UK:
http://www.cit.org.uk/computeraid
http://www.computersforart.org/
http://www.jamiescomputerclub.org.uk/about.shtml
http://www.recycler.vze.com/
http://www.rei.org.uk/

USA
http://www.studentpcsonline.com/
http://www.gatfl.org/reboot/default.htm
http://freegeek.org/recyclelink.php
http://eric.ed.gov/
http://www.resna.org/taproject/library/pubs/recycling/RMchptr3.htm
http://www.accrc.org/
http://www.webdirectory.com/Recycling/Recycled_Computer_Products/
http://www.turningpointtechnology.com/
http://www.ync.org/
http://www.teclogicny.com/
http://walden.mvp.net/~sdelorey/BWRKSweb.html
http://www.lanecrrc.org/
http://www.witsinc.org/
http://handicapability.org/computers.html

This info gathered from http://www.opencollector.org/freecomputers.html .. and to those planning to contact any of these organizations .. mention 'Giveaway of the Day' as a resource for them to use for their 'giveaway' computers!

...and thanks to Wolven for the reminder to erase the hard drive before donation! Kill Disk will do just that, http://www.killdisk.com/ The free version will make one pass; the paid version will make several ... cleaning the disk to Department of Defense regulations.