```json
{
    "title": "In praise of found technology and the waste we treat it",
    "url": "https://performancezen.com/2008/08/30/in-praise-of-found-technology-and-the-waste-we-treat-it/",
    "datePublished": "2008-08-30",
    "dateModified": "2022-06-24",
    "language": "en-US",
    "description": "The title is a deliberate misspelling. An event in the last two weeks has got me thinking about EWaste, and the way it is treated in the US, and likely…",
    "author": "spierzchala",
    "publisher": "Performance Zen"
}
```

# In praise of found technology and the waste we treat it

The title is a deliberate misspelling. An event in the last two weeks has got me thinking about [EWaste](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-waste), and the way it is treated in the US, and likely the entire [developed world](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_world).

About two weeks ago, #1 son told my wife to "STOP THE CAR!" as they were driving down the road near our house. Thinking he was mad, she did. #1 son leaped out and returned to the car with an [HP Pavilion Desktop](http://www.amazon.com/Pavilion-Desktop-2-80-GHz-Pentium-Hyper-Threading/dp/B0000DK3KP), in the vain hope that it could replace his current dinosaur computer.

This morning, I completed the configuration process by adding a wireless network card to this machine and they are now up and running with a computer from 2006-07, rather than the one they had been on up until then, which was from 1999 (seriously).

This leaves me to wonder why someone would dispose of a machine that is still perfectly functional. A machine that could have been donated to anyone of a number of causes to help those far less fortunate than we are.

I may complain incessantly about my lack of a MacBook ($|Pro|Air), but in the area of technology, I am well off. I have an excellent pair of servers that host my sites. I have a number of older machines in my basement to serve a variety of purposes, including development. I have my personal laptop and a very powerful work-provided laptop. And my wife has the most powerful machine in the house, to get e-mail and cruise Craigslist.

We are not computer-challenged. Yet, I do not take the disposal of **any** of this technology lightly. If I do dispose of technology, it goes into the city garbage ONLY on hazardous waste days. If I can, I give the machines to organizations who can use even a very old machine.

The processing of [EWaste](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-waste) is a shameful burden that the wealthy of the world impose and throw down to the down-trodden. We pass along the poisons to those who are least able to say no, without a second thought.

To find and reincarnate a computer on the street is the act of a truly geeky family.

To have thrown the computer to the curb in the first place is a sign of the shameful ignorance in our society for what is done with EWaste.

Are you being a responsible computer owner, as a person or a corporation?