I am located far from the problem, but from what I have read in the last
few years, Goodwill and similar organizations have become the dumping ground
for unusable, unrepairable, electronic trash which costs them money to recycle.
Many of them have stopped accepting anything electronic that can not be
sold for enough money to cover the cost of legally getting rid of the parts
that come with it that are of no value.
Quite simply, unless you are willing to volunteer the time to sort it for
them and dispose of the nonsaleable stuff, the only sane policy is to
refuse any donations of electronics.
There are places that do exactly that.
F'rinstance, my favorite recycled-goods vendor, Urban Ore in Berkeley,
has tons of electronic equipment, all sold "as-is" with no guarantee of
working or not. Much of it does work; a lot of stuff is "vintage" (like
old tube-operated equipment), so you takes your chances with it. In any
case, they move a lot of stuff through their store.
Obviously they need to get rid of a lot of electronic crap that doesn't
sell. Turns out that at least here (Alameda County), there are funded
programs which handle consumer electronics waste. There's a place in
Berkeley where I can take any electronic stuff--computer monitors, PCs,
TVs, etc.--for disposal, for free, no questions asked.
Too bad this isn't the case everywhere.
--
Made From Pears: Pretty good chance that the product is at least
mostly pears.
Made With Pears: Pretty good chance that pears will be detectable in
the product.
Contains Pears: One pear seed per multiple tons of product.
(with apologies to Dorothy L. Sayers)
