Give your old PC parts to Bluekop
Posted on September 9th, 2009 in business |
- Image by ALA staff via Flickr
A few days ago I posted a message on Twitter asking if anyone would like to take a few PC parts off my hands before I take them to the recycling center to dump them.
Through a couple of Twitter users (Thanks Guys!) I was put in touch with BlueKop. Bluekop take in computer hardware parts and refurbish them to give to schools or charities.
As luck would have it, a couple of the BlueKop guys were in Cork recently which allowed me to pack the car with several CRT monitors, Keyboards & mice and some 20 – 80GB hard drives and meet the guys behind BlueKop in person to hand over the parts I had.
Parts given to Bluekop are tested and cleaned (physically and data-wise) and new fully working systems are assembled. They usually install Microsoft Windows XP and are Microsoft authorized refurbisher’s so they’re not passing on any potential problems with serial numbers to a school or charitable organizations.
They supply ongoing support to their customers via remote desktop connections or through local companies which can visit premises.
I know that there are plenty of techies and businesses out there with old computer parts that are no longer being used, taking up space in corners, hallways or attics. If you have some computer parts spare, don’t leave them there or dump them, contact Bluekop at 01 4800560.
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5 Responses
Delighted to see that there is a company doing this, I’d be slightly worried about data / privacy, but i guess they’d take machines without hard drives?
Will get onto them asap as we’d be able to get together a lot of old bits and pieces in UCC I reckon
I’d worry a little about data privacy too. I handed over 4 hard drives today, I repartitioned and formatted each of them first. I know theres software out there to reverse that too but what can ya do.
Bluekop looks good but another option I’d keep in mind is Camara.ie who refurbish PCs for schools in Africa, install opensource software on them and actually send volunteers to Africa to train the users there. AFAIK they’ve a new drop-in centre in Cork too.
Hi James,
Cool, I hadn’t heard of those guys either.
My girlfriend is a primary school teacher and her school is hoping to give some of their old computers to an organisation like this.
They contacted Bluekop today but Bluekop won’t take them because they’re too old.
I just looked at the camara.ie site, their center in Cork is in Sundays Well. As luck would have it, this is where the primary school is too. This could work out very well, thanks for pointing me in their direction.
Gordon.
Hi everyone,
Can I point your mouse at Computers for Irish Schools set up specifically to provide computers, free of charge, to local schools. http://www.cfis.ie
Computers for Irish Schools was set up by Electronic Recycling to take Computers that are not quite ready for the recycling bin, refurbish them and donate them to deserving local schools.
There is a cost to the donor as our service is a B2B IT recycling service Our difference is that, there is no cost to the schools, they get guaranteed working equipment and when they are finished with it, we take it back and put it through our recycling service. Part of this service is total hard drive destruction by aggressive shredding.
Signing up to CFIS give our clients the best of both worlds, an opportunity to donate computers to Irish schools and a guarantee that their responsibility regarding disposal of waste electronics are complied with. We also have our names, address, phone numbers and license details on our website, which is of course a legal requirement.
Another question which needs to be asked of the service provider is
” what happens to the computers, when the school can no longer use them”
See our blog for some danger signs regarding bringing old IT equipment to the wrong place. http://electronic-recycling.blogspot.com/
Regards
Brendan Palmer