Sadly, at Thanksgiving, an enterprising church fundraiser organized an electronics/appliance disposal party. You bring your ancient PC, vacuum tube PC monitors, fridge, coffee makers and the noisy old oil cooled hard drive (ok, I went overboard here), wait in line in your car, and a crew will come by, inventory your junk and charge you a fee for safe disposal. It was time to say goodbye to an old Compaq monitor, a Dell 1.25 GHz desktop (new in 2001) and a dusty old Compaq desktop (probably 0.2 GHz processor) that have been collecting dust and spyware for the better part of this decade. The Compaq desktop was obsolete when we bought it in 2001 as a cgi-bin container for our startup's website…. ah, the days before open source CMS….
Now, HP has a cheaper alternative to even this good samaritan's innovation…
The key: DON'T LANDFILL ELECTRONICS!
The HP Consumer Buyback and Planet Partners Recycling Program aims to reduce the amount of electronics in landfills by refurbishing technology for further use or safely recycling it. They've partnered with Market Velocity Inc which handles all the reverse logistics and check writing too. Here' the process:
- Visit www.hp.com/go/ConsumerBuyback.
- Enter the required product information (brand, model, specs, etc.).
- Receive an instant buyback quote, net of shipping costs, if there is value.
- If there is residual value, simply box up the product, apply the shipping label provided by HP and drop it off at a local UPS location.
- Once HP receives the package and checks the integrity of the product, it will mail a check.
If the product does not have residual value, HP will recycle HP and Compaq-branded products for free. Simply box up the product, apply the provided label and drop it off at a local UPS location. For an additional fee, home pickup of products is available.
