How to Recycle Your Hard Drive and Give Back to the World
With so much information being stored online and in the cloud, most of us no longer need our old hard drives. We simply buy new ones and transfer all our data over, which is great for the environment. And yet, many of us still have old hard drives lying around gathering dust in a corner somewhere. How do we recycle hard drive? The good news is that with a little bit of time and effort you can turn your obsolete hard drive into some useful cash for charity — and give back to the community at large!
- The environmental benefits of recycling your old hard drives
If you’re wondering what to do with your old hard drives, the answer is simple: recycle them. If you decide to recycle your old hard drives instead of throwing them into the trash, you’ll be helping the environment.According to the Department of Energy, there are three ways to recycle hard drives:
Geared towards both businesses and individuals, the list of charities that accept old hard drives is not very long. In order to find the right one for you, here are a few questions to ask:
Each of these organizations accepts a different size drive for recycling:
If you know of any other good options or have any questions about recycling hard drives, please reply in the comments below.
If you have excess electronics or making tools, you can easily sell them on eBay, Amazon, or other similar platforms. Unfortunately, though, this practice also raises a lot of environmental issues. Electronics contains a lot of valuable debris that will end up in the trash, and some of it never gets recycled. Hewlett Packard has correctly identified this problem and come up with a solution. Instead of selling unwanted electronics, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) decided to refurbish them and repurpose them for future use. The company has set a goal of netting $150 million for this initiative.
If you have laptops, tablets, desktops, or a range of other devices lying around your house, it’s pretty easy to donate them. HPE offers a program where manufacturers and large retailers will donate the surplus devices they no longer need. In exchange, the organizations will receive spare parts and refurbished laptops and desktops. Getting rid of useless devices can lessen the amount of waste generated by our technology, and it’s company policy to donate all such devices.
Here are a few more charities accepting old cell phones:
For many individuals, the web was an invaluable resource for learning a multitude of skills as well as outlets for entertainment.
2. How to recycle your old hard drive for cash and help out charity
Did you know that you can recycle your old hard drive for cash and help out charity at the same time? It’s true! Hard drives are very valuable because they contain all the data you’ve ever saved and that means they’re also a valuable commodity that can be traded-in for cash.Unfortunately, many people don’t think about recycling old hard drives because there’s no real incentive. If you want to keep your old drive use it, recycle it properly, and then donate the data to a good cause. By the same token, the recycled hard drive can be put to better use and get valuable money that can be put towards some good causes.
Well, keep reading to find out how.
If you find hard drives of any age or condition, they can often be refurbished and turned into something useful. But right now, technology websites such as eBay are filled with old drives for sale that are simply labeled “Recycled” or “EBay refurbished.” But these texts are misleading. It’s not illegal to buy these old drives off it, but they are cost-cutting scams disguised as valuable charity donations. In some cases, these attempts to convince you that you can buy a used drive for charity will harm more than help by endangering small wildlife populations, for example.
To be clear here: the process of recycling your hard drive to cash so it can donate data to innovation and science is quite simple. There are a few steps you need to take but no special equipment or specialist skills are required. You do, however, need to be aware of the scummy elements of the industry so no matter what you choose to do, proceed with caution!
Scanning your old disks with a scanner or your old computer’s hard drive capacity checker, make a note of the file type, format it and hold on to it for now.
Conclusion: We all have old hard drives that are gathering dust somewhere in the house or office, but you can give them new life by recycling them. If you need a bit of extra money, why not make some cash while also giving back to the community?
We all have old hard drives that are gathering dust somewhere in the house or office, but you can give them new life by recycling them. If you need a bit of extra money, why not make some cash while also giving back to the community?Easy! You need just a simple set up and some free software to get started, but once you get down the proper path there is no hard reason you shouldn’t have a working hard drive that you can donate to a great cause.
Disclaimer: I’m not liable for any damage or legal issues that might arise from running this guide. This guide is for informational purposes only. Don’t rely on this article for any legal or contract compliance tasks.
Regardless of how old your drive is, all you need to get it going again is some free software. There are many different programs out there for this, using just a web browser you can easily download and install some utility software. Most of them are freeware, meaning that you can use them for free and there are no limitations on what you can do with them.
If you do get your hands on any sort of commercial software for the purpose of recycling old hard drives, it can be a pain to get rid of. For example, there are plenty of utilities available that will make your life a living hell if you try to donate your old hard drive to a different cause. Additionally, many of these utilities will make things much more difficult for you. For example, a program called Recycle.NET will delete all the files on your drive that are related to the cause you are donating to while also deleting any files it finds that have the word “recycle” in them. Not only is this deleting your files very inconvenient, but also picture files (such as.jpg,.bmp, and.gif) that you have on your drive will also be deleted and you won’t be able to find them again once the program is closed.
