Two down, four hundred and eighty-odd to go

My adventures in IT disposal have proven a mixed bag so far, and while most of what I have written previously has been borne out, at least in terms of letting 'us' know what to do, I'm happy to report that, in our neck of the woods (Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire), that it is possible to get rid of an old PC. But by golly, it took a bit of doing in the finding, with the doing yet to be confirmed.

 My first port of call was a website we have in the past found to be quite reliable, wastepoint (heard of it?). Sadly, despite using a very clear process, we ended up with a less than helpful result: take it to London, Luton or Leeds.

Next up, I headed for the local authority site, and after a bit of drilling down got where I needed to be, which was as far as I could go on this site, which then sent me off elsewhere (actually it gave me a choice of two, one of which is now defunct, but at least defaulted back to the other) to Turn the world around/Welcome to our future/recycle. This in turn sent me off to a seemingly promising section, which listed a few phone numbers. Sadly the companies mentioned were either no longer operating, not interested in my volumes (nothing less than a skipful got them excited) or too far away.

So I headed back to the council site and emailed directly to the contact offered.

I must say I was quite impressed to be called back within the day, by a most helpful lady who offered a few suggestions. These all were local and could help, but as I pointed out to her it was interesting that none were actually listed on the site.

One was a private company that would take my PC, but at a price (£1.50 for a CPU; £2.50 for a monitor). One was a not-for-profit, which would be happy to take them, but it was only once I called the boss (who I knew) and he told me where to go and to tell them 'he’d sent me'. Finally I was given the mobile number of the private contractor running the public sites. He happily told me they'd take the stuff, but only if I was a private individual.

So, without actually going out there to test it, it looks like it may work, at least in our neck of the woods.

 

But I rather suspect most folk would have given up well before the point of actually making such progress. Now, where next? We've also tried it (having been asked by a Junkk.com user) about Wokingham, but sadly, despite our best efforts and a series of exchanges with the council waste officer, come up with nothing there. Which leaves just a few more left on the list... about 480.

 

Thing is, we're just a little outfit with no real resource. Isn't his something worth doing and supporting at much higher levels?