Ewaste recycler

[MECHGAMER]

I'm planning to go to a local e waste recycler to look for keyboards. What keyboards are most common and do many e waste recyclers charge a flat rate or charge dependent on keyboard?

[kbdfr]

It probably depends on where you are.

[Chyros]

I keep running into AT101s and especially Model Ms. They charge me 50 p for each board usually.

[seebart]

I keep running into AT101s and especially Model Ms. They charge me 50 p for each board usually.

not Dells with the old logo by any chance? Or silver label M's ? As you know those would be well woth the effort.

[Chyros]

I keep running into AT101s and especially Model Ms. They charge me 50 p for each board usually.

not Dells with the old logo by any chance? Or silver label M's ? As you know those would be well woth the effort.

Hahaha yeah I know that for sure xD . I do get more grey-label Model Ms than blue-label ones, but no silver ones (yet), and pretty much all new-logo AT101Ws (I tend to refer to everything in the family as AT101s unless I'm specifically trying to differentiate between the types).

The recyclers have also come up with many other boards, but much more on-and-off.

[seebart]

Same old story. Most of the stuff that shows up at the recyclers is of the less desirable kind.

[Chyros]

Oh yeah, for sure, but tbh they've found me some fairly nice things over time too . It's a matter of patience.

My other major source of keyboards is the uni, for which I don't pay at all. They don't get me as many, but some of the things I DO get from there are much nicer (including that Cherry HFMGB that turned out to be super wanted xD ).

[Muirium]

The general rule is that heavy is good.

We've wasted time discussing tools for ewaste workers here in the past. Things like flow charts and other nonsense that no one but a willing keyboard nut would ever follow. The truth is the devil is all in the detail. Once you screen out everything lightweight and modern, the remainder contains a better enrichment of goodies, but it's still just ore until an expert shows up.

[MECHGAMER]

I live in Irvine, CA. The recycler I went to had nothing better than a G86.

[Chyros]

The general rule is that heavy is good.

That has its dangers tbh. I'm thinking of reassuring my recyclers that something doesn't HAVE to be heavy for it to be good, there's plenty of very light great boards out there. Basically I just told them;

-no USB
-nothing black (not racially intended)
-no media keys
-keep everything you're in doubt about

And that seems to work OK so far. But since I told them about heavy I keep getting Model Ms.

[MECHGAMER]

Idk about black keyboards, the m13 is black, and it's pretty good.

[Muirium]

And if someone ever recycles an HHKB…

Here we go again.

[seebart]

And if someone ever recycles an HHKB…

Maybe in Korea?

[Muirium]

Actually, people really do make mistakes like that. Famously some fancy reviewer in New York who got a pre-release MacBook Air in 2008 left it in with his papers in his apartment and his maid recycled the lot of them. I bet that assmonkey beat the shit out of her, at least verbally. Fucking "journalists".

[seebart]

Ah that's a nice little story, in the end someone had to pay. Probably that poor maid eventough she was just doing her job.

[Muirium]

The guy wound up using the image of the thrown away MacBook as the main point of his review: so light these things can happen. Played nicely into Apple's marketing. But because Steve was still around back then, NO REPLACEMENT FOR YOU! Ah, justice.

[seebart]

The guy wound up using the image of the thrown away MacBook as the main point of his review: so light these things can happen. Played nicely into Apple's marketing.

Well that's the best rescue plan not to look like a total dumbass in that situation.

[Chyros]

Idk about black keyboards, the m13 is black, and it's pretty good.

Balance of probability . What are the odds of finding one of them? Besides, it's still a Model M, they might think it'd be an exception to the rule (it looks pretty imposing after all).

[Charlie_Brown_MX]

I keep running into AT101s and especially Model Ms. They charge me 50 p for each board usually.

That sounds like a great setup.

Where in the UK are you based? How did you get into this arrangement? Did you just phone around until you got hold of an e-waste recycler willing to work with you? I've had pretty mixed experiences. I once, many years ago, scored a Mac Classic from the landfill collection. More recently, I was with a friend when he got a beautiful, huge, heavy Panasonic CRT TV for gaming --- but only because the Council employee in question `turned his back' to let us lift it from the collection; he told us that it was completely against policy for us to take it, even though it was fully functioning and just going to be scrapped.

[Another, even more recent incident with Council staff and recycling: another friend and I hand-carried a couple of bags of recycling to the local recycling centre on a lovely sunny day... only to be turned away by the jobsworth in charge because it was policy to only accept material dropped off by car. Neither of us was aware of that rule, and he flatly refused to accept it on this occasion. We carried the bottles and plastic back to my flat, then put them in the general waste because I had nowhere else for them to go.]

[Chyros]

I keep running into AT101s and especially Model Ms. They charge me 50 p for each board usually.

That sounds like a great setup.

Where in the UK are you based? How did you get into this arrangement? Did you just phone around until you got hold of an e-waste recycler willing to work with you?

I live in Southampton.

One of my friends is a local, he brought me around a few places. I asked them to keep an eye open for old keyboards, and said I'd visit again next week. Most of them were happy to help along . It generally takes a couple of visits to get them going though.

Apart from that, the people who get rid of electronics waste at the Uni also keep an eye open for me for old keyboards. I get them for free from them. They got me loads of cool stuff too.

[MECHGAMER]

has anyone ever found an F at an ewaste recycler? Also, what laptops would I ususally find at the e waste recycler?

[Chyros]

has anyone ever found an F at an ewaste recycler? Also, what laptops would I ususally find at the e waste recycler?

No, but I did find my 725 from '85 at one so really really old stuff isn't out. Some other really old ones too, but not spoiling those yet .

[MECHGAMER]

old stuff, eh? maybe a beamspring with enough luck.

[Charlie_Brown_MX]

I live in Southampton.

One of my friends is a local, he brought me around a few places. I asked them to keep an eye open for old keyboards, and said I'd visit again next week. Most of them were happy to help along . It generally takes a couple of visits to get them going though.

Apart from that, the people who get rid of electronics waste at the Uni also keep an eye open for me for old keyboards. I get them for free from them. They got me loads of cool stuff too.

Thanks for the info. I'm up in Aberdeen, so I'll do some googling and see what companies there are locally. All the oil companies up here have quite fast turnover of IT equipment, though, so I fear the keyboards will just be a stream of crappy rubberdome Dells.

[Muirium]

And don't forget how mean those Aberdonians can be!

"Why did double glazing take off so fast in Aberdeen? So the kids wouldn't hear the ice cream vans."

[Chyros]

I live in Southampton.

One of my friends is a local, he brought me around a few places. I asked them to keep an eye open for old keyboards, and said I'd visit again next week. Most of them were happy to help along . It generally takes a couple of visits to get them going though.

Apart from that, the people who get rid of electronics waste at the Uni also keep an eye open for me for old keyboards. I get them for free from them. They got me loads of cool stuff too.

Thanks for the info. I'm up in Aberdeen, so I'll do some googling and see what companies there are locally. All the oil companies up here have quite fast turnover of IT equipment, though, so I fear the keyboards will just be a stream of crappy rubberdome Dells.

Och aye?!

Well if you can't find it at a recyclers', it might be worth visiting offices or buildings like that. Especially unis, and in particular the chemistry and physics faculties, tend to have some lying around (mostly ancient analytical equipment that only works on certain proprietary software which only works on DOS-based computers which only accept ancient keyboards).

[MECHGAMER]

I do live near UCI, so I might go look there. Also, I'll probably go to this place called expected in Santa Ana

[dzhoou]

I've got my F at a local ewaste recycler (from ebay posting though)

[MECHGAMER]

I actually meant ezpc in my last post, not experienced. Autocorrect is annoying. Has anyone found anything else other than model ms and at 101s?