What Should I Do With Old Hardware?
Clients often ask us what to do with old equipment once it is replaced. The answer has both security and environmental layers.
For many years ITS has been a drop off location for a local electronics recycling company. This allows our staff to bring obsolete hardware back to our office, to turn in. It also allows the public to drop off computers, printers, TVs, cables, keyboards, and the like. Some items like TVs and appliances have a fee, which we pass through. Electronics recyclers can break down components to recover metals like copper and gold which help pay for the service, and the devices do not end up in a landfill where they cannot decompose.
Computers and storage devices should be wiped (securely erased) so no data is accessible, if someone removes the disk or turns on the computer. ITS can wipe drives, or some recyclers will offer to destroy disks and even provide a certificate of destruction. Older style spinning drives are easy to wipe, but the process is more complicated on modern solid state storage because of how it works. Some drives simplify this by silently encrypting the drive's contents. Then erasing the drive is accomplished simply by changing the encryption key, making the files unreadable.
Always wipe drives. In addition to confidentiality issues, losing control over some types of data like health information can result in a HIPAA violation.
Sometimes old computers can be donated, if they are still useful, however we still strongly recommend wiping the drive first.
If you are not near our office, many towns and cities have their own electronics recycling programs, and many third-party recycling firms are available as well.
July 2025
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