eCycle
Did Santa Claus bring you a new electronic item? Or did you purchase new hardware as a year-end capital expense? Whatever the reason, if you find yourself with old computers or electronics that are too old to benefit anyone (even the National Cristina Foundation won’t take Pentium II computers anymore), you need to responsibly dispose of the old clunker.
Being responsible means taking or shipping it to a government or private recycling center. It means doing a little research on the Internet to find out where to go and which location accepts what. It means sanitizing hard drives and other storage media so that you don’t breach your ethical and legal duties to safeguard your client’s property (not to mention your own personal data). This can be done using software like Darik’s Boot And Nuke, Disk Wipe or Eraser .
You can also use a physical device to erase, like Drive eRazer, which works well if you have miscellaneous hard drives without the computer case. CD’s, DVD’s, floppies and tapes are the Tribbles of the law office – they have a way of self-proliferating. Most new paper shredders can shred CD’s and old floppies.
Once your computer is sanitized and free of data, you need to find someone who will accept it for proper disposal. It is not proper to put a computer in a landfill! For a list of e-cycling websites, go to the PMAP pages of SC Bar.com and find “old computers.” Be sure to read the article there on disposing of computers responsibly – by yours truly and Ross Kodner: “Dumpster Disasters.” Good luck and happy e-cycling!
The hazards are too numerous to count and too often there is not personal responsibility for data security and proper disposal or recycling.