For the past far too long as you might remember I've been working on decluttering the house. It's been pretty stop start due to all sorts of things but mostly health problems. When it's not Pisces producing yet another obscure health oddity it's me - although to be honest he's way ahead of me these days. I'm making some progress on the house but while the pile of donate or recycle in the hall is more than half gone I have yet to deal with a biggie - the outdated computers and their accessories. They're still here unfortunately although the bulk of the dead phones and other obsolete electronics left the house ages ago.
Over the years that I've had computers (which I have to say is a very long time now) quite a number have passed through my hands. Some - the old desktops which I gave up using around twenty years ago - long ago died and went off to PC heaven but that hasn't been the case with several ancient laptops - and these are old, very old. They have been stored away and all but forgotten until now - mainly because I had no idea how to get rid of them. It all seemed too hard and much simpler to shove them in the back of a cupboard and forget about them.
Now, though, it's time for them to go. I've found a charity that refurbishes computers and donates them to those in need and, as they also take old devices for parts, I'm hoping they have a use for these relics. Somewhat to my surprise, despite their age and neglect, they still work although their software and operating systems are many years out of date and their batteries - well, let's just say they're no longer fit for purpose. When I checked it turns out I was more efficient than I thought back in the day and had backed everything up. So that's a start and most of the clean up of the laptops is done but there is still a mini device from the days before tablets came in which I doubt will be of use to anyone. It, too, will have to be checked out and restored to pristine factory status before I can rid myself of it.
It's all been very time consuming and I wish I'd done it long ago. Yes, I know that would have been the sensible thing to do but there you go. You do what you do - or don't do - and live with the consequences. Oh well, at least once they're gone there'll be one less thing to do, won’t there.
2 comments:
I think we all have some of this electronic redundancy in our homes. I know we do, and we keep talking about disposing of it safely. We need to load it all up one if these days and take it to the municipal facility that handles such items. Whether it all get handled properly, I have my doubts, but it's the best we can do.
We can take it to the local council, too, David, but like you we have our doubts as to just how much is recycled properly. That's why I was so pleased to find this charity group which disposes of what they can't use ethically.
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