Who will rid me of these obsolete PCs?

It is tricky.

The regulations governing these sorts of things are annoyingly draconian. At work we used to sell off second-hand computers to staff, but that got knocked on the head a few years back because of tax problems and, bizarrely, some quirk of OEM licensing that meant that while the machines all had a COA for a copy of OEM windows, they couldn't be sold with windows on, even if we used the original restore disks to reinstall it.

We found a local PC recycling company who would take them off our hands, and sort out the paperwork, for free so long as we delivered them. I believe they're on their way to Uganda now to supply some new schools.

leave covered in the front garden with a help yourself note..

I second the leave it outisde route.. as long as you live on a busy enough street some passer by will either want it, or believe (possibly mistakenly) they can make money selling it, either way not your problem once they take it..

we once had a cheapo exercise bike that was bought for about £20 quid from asda, it was crap and never got used, but I had no idea how to get rid of it.. left it on the wall of our front garden in the morning with a note saying "no longer needed, working, help yourself" and it was gone when I got back from work

Beancounters and residual value

"...giving away a decommissioned PC is considered to be a “taxable benefit” . This means determining the “current market value” of the beastie in question and notifying the beancounters such that they could perform some dark rituals and incomprehensible accounting voodoo. This was a no-go."

Swap the beancounters' desktops for the obsolete ones that they claim have residual value and see how quickly they can depreciate IT hardware to zero. This also applies to printers.

Never considered lying, eh?

Easiest way to get rid of unwanted equipment is to let the company (et al) simply go right on thinking that the gear is in storage somewhere and then do with it as you please.

Sure, the company bean counters *might* one day ask you where they went but you can just shrug your shoulders and give a "I don't know, been ages since I saw them last." Since you're talking about maybe a $1k worth of obsolete equipment odds are nobody will ever care or notice.

At least that's how it works around here; most of that sort of equipment finds its way out the door onto eBay or into a friend's house.

The problem is UK law (as usual)

The problem with giving away old computer equipment in the UK is basically the law. As many posters have pointed out, if you sell old equipment, you are liable to tax, thereby needing to pay and expensive accountant to sort it out.

Having Windows on it will also fall foul of licencing laws but that can be got round by using Linux but that will cost money as someone will have to be hired to reload all the PCs.

If a gifted PC then blows up, catches fire, electrocutes or injures some beneficiary, the donor could be sued. Therefore each PC will need to be checked and PAT tested, again requiring a hired hand.

Sending them to third-world countries is not the answer either as the cost of doing this is quite prohibitive, not to mention again having someone to check them over though if for other reasons rather than legal.

The answer? If the government is really serious about green issues and recycling, the law should be changed to accommodate the above. Sure, the treasury will lose a load of tax as I am sure smart entrepreneur will use the bound-to-exist loopholes and make themselves a fortune.

I'd better get my coat as I can hear the bean-counters and health-and-safety lobby bleating in the wings, drowning out the practical and logical creative-thinking individuals.

Bletchley Park

Just in case there is anyone reading who has kit which may be of historic interest, the people at Bletchley Park might want it for their museum collection.

Ours used to be ...

... Put outside the door.

Oddly enough, this would happen just before someone found them and took them home. However, we knew nothing about that. At all. Oh no.

Otherwise... tax... VAT... nightmare.

Once upon a time a typewriter used to be put on a desk. It remained there until all the keys stopped working and could no longer be repaired (and typewriter repair men were geniuses at their trade). IT, and the perpetual demand for upgrades and new kit, often as part of the user's status symbol, has, and continues to, cost the commercial world a huge and ridiculous amount of money.

Local charities a reasonable bet.

I set up new PCs for clients. Most of the time the client doesn't want the old PC so I agree with them that I'll take it to a local charity. They're much less snotty than the big names about what they get. They've a furniture warehouse and they have a part-time geek who builds the computers up and sets them up and sells them on. The machines go without hard disk drives in (those go back to the owners) but they all have an XP licence sticker on the side. Bung in a hard drive, install XP, and you've got a serviceable machine.

Have a look around and see whether you've any local charities that will do that kind of work.

Underground + don't get caught

I notice one thing here. Geographic location matters.

I hear you, how a charity won't take boxes when they just took boxes, understandable then they would be exactly like you, stuck with a junk room or mountain of ****.

But if you traveled to my geographic location, you could dump 250 boxes on the electronics tech portion of any local college and the students will take them all home and either use them or strip them for the parts. I mean really really strip them leaving nothing but green blackened burnt boards, the older the better, especially TTL logic from the MFM / monochrome days, that stuff works great on breadboards.

In my location, if you have a LOT, you can start considering selling it for the metal. I have sheets and sheets of gold memory chips from some of those early towers or mini mainframes with the giant vertical slide in cards, I couldn't even tell you what system they came from. Although my dual 8 /12" floppys + working word processing software came out of an old IBM.

In my location, you could simply do some midnight dumping. While I hate the green's carbon tax bs, I equally don't really like this method as it can pollute if done by a retard who doesn't know how to make a ring for a campfire (you know the type), but it is an option, and strangely enough I have found some gems out in the field rusting in the rain from people who have done just that!

I used to do dumpster diving and neighborhood driving for electronic parts, of any kind, even audio tubes from old TV's found in a river next to a gas can and a shopping care, now run my vintage guitar tube amp!

I really hate to say it, but when the laws have become so bad, it's time to ignore them. It's no longer about being green, it's about profit, and corruption. Anybody who want's to go green, can, even I have, but for me it was more about saving on electricity bills.

A year ago, I'd take them off your hands but then they would have to cross borders into DHS-Nazi-Fascism-ville, shipping costs, gas, ICE, etc. You simply need to find someone like me (closer to you) who will happily take them and strip em down and get the best of the best out of them and keep my mouth shut about it because I hate the bad law but love the parts. Plus I have that small problem I just talked about, saving on electricity, so I set a 10 year plan, which is now realized. So those wasteful 250-500watt PSU's are no longer on my want list, and sadly not even the fan's. My fan's are ittsy bitsy now.

How many have tossed hard drive disc/plates into a river? (this isn't the whole drive, just the silver plates)

While the law may say no, I am not the law

This green **** is actually ruining the economy more. -IMO

In the UK? Try Computer Aid

We've managed to offload all sorts of equipment to them, from desktops to fax machines, even an old mainframe.

They'll happily take anything P4 onwards free of charge, if they can't use it they will charge you a nominal fee for collection and handle the disposal as well.

On the other hand if your equipment is older than seven or eight years you probably need to go through an office clearance company, like Russell Fewins.

Computers are like fish

I have been on the buying end of surplus computer equipment for years. The sticking point with your bean counters is "current market value", as it always is. The bean counters always say something like "I paid $2000 for it four years ago, so it has one year of depreciation left. It is worth $400." And, of course, I am prepared to offer $50 for the same incredibly valuable asset. The bean counters feign being insulted, and there is no deal.

The bean counters need to understand that computers are like fish. The first day, metaphorically, they are fresh and sweet-smelling and valuable. The second day, the fish are still quite edible, though with a mild aroma. The third day, fish are candidates for chowder. After that, they become fertilizer in the tradition of Native Americans in days gone by.

The trick here is to expense all computer acquisitions in the first year. This drives the finance types crazy, because they will have fewer valuable "assets" to show on the books. But expensing computers rather than treating them as capital assets is closer to today's reality of disposable electronics... Ben

Some good ideas here

But nobody's mentioned Freecycle, sort of a city-wide version of the "leave it outside" idea.

Freecycle.org is pretty active in Canada http://www.freecycle.org/group/CA/ and basically you can put the whole lot of it up on a single posting, and people will come and take it away, gratefully. Not much different from the leaving it outside except that you get a 'face to face' thank you. But somehow that helps.

Also the selling on ebay as a pallet job lot seems like a good idea. Whatever it sells for (use the auction) is obviously correct market value and that can be used as evidence.