When getting rid of old computers, printers, cameras, TVs, etc... what do you do with them? Dh just took an old computer of ours to a drop off point, and we had to PAY to recycle it. There has got to be a better way. Doesn't Europe have incentives for recycling? Are there any organizations to donate to that can use the old stuff??

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We have a place right down the road from our company that takes them and rebuilds them and sells them. So I delete everything off the hard drives and give them to them! Plus it's a write off for our business!

Try freecycle.

We have a guy on ours that will take any electronics, working or not, and he will fix them and then re-freecycle them to someone who needs them. He is retired and this is his hobby.

This is how we got rid of our old TV that suddenly stopped working.

Freecycle is an excellent idea... I have seen several requests for old electronic equipment on our local Freecycle group.

Our local dump has one day a year that they accept old electronic equipment. If you bring it yourself it's free to leave it there. I'm not sure what they dow ith it.

DO NOT DONATE YORU COMPUTER!!! There is no way to fully erase your hard drive! Hackers know this and get computers from thrift stores, trash, etc just to get any info they can. Take your hard drive out and DESTROY IT! Smash it to pieces. Don't take any chance! If you do not know what a hard drive is then destroy everything!!

Staples will recycle it for $10, BUT they will take all the other electronics for free. They rolled the program out yesterday. They are the first retailer to accepts recyclables on a daily basis. (DH was kinda excited about this, can ya tell? )

Donate old computers to your school district. Like stay@homemom said, take out the hard drive first, but you can donate the rest of the computer. Hard drives really don't cost that much, especially for schools.

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Frugal is being wise with your money and resources and cheap is forcing everyone else to.

Definately take out the hard drive and destroy it...that would seem to be a no brainer. My Dh heads up the tech committee at our kids school and they get donated computers loaded with personal information, all the time. It's scary.

Dh likes to keep us current with our computers and such, so usually we just give our old stuff to family/friends that might be interested. We've also donated to our church and school. I agree with whomever suggested Freecycle, that would be a good quick way to donate it.

Otherwise, small electronics like radios, sm kitchen appliances etc I donate to the few places that do at home pick up for clothing/shoes. They send me a postcard in the mail or call me when they're in my area (4 to 6 times per year) and I just set out a bag or box of items I want to donate on my driveway and they leave me a receipt.