Appeal for old computers
- Posted:
- 15:10 12 Feb 2003
- Topics:
- Personal Computers
Charity Computer Aid International plans to increase the
number of refurbished PCs it ships to not-for-profit organisations
worldwide from 5,000 to 50,000 a year by 2006 and is appealing for
more donations.
"There is enormous demand for refurbished PCs overseas," said Jaf
Shah, the charity's marketing and fundraising manager. Shah said
the charity has attracted more funding and increased capacity at
its London premises to help achieve its goal.
One organisation that has teamed up with Computer Aid is University
College London, whose decommissioned PCs are refurbished by the
charity and donated to not-for-profit organisations worldwide
instead of being disposed of in landfill sites or sent for costly
recycling.
The university has disposed of 700 PCs this way since the scheme
began two years ago.
UCL has over 10,000 PCs and the constant need for more powerful
machines means a maximum upgrade cycle of three years, said
Brigitte Picot, divisional co-ordinator for UCL's education and
information support division.
The university pays about £60 for a van-load of about 150 PCs
to be picked up and a small cost to cover any that need to be
recycled.
Computer Aid removes all unwanted PCs but only machines of Pentium
standard can be refurbished. The ones it cannot use it sends to its
recycling partner, Silver Lining, which strips the 95% of parts
that can be recycled and disposes of the rest.
The charity uses Sanitiser software to wipe data from the machines
free of charge.
How to donate
Computer Aid International is again appealing to Computer Weekly readers to donate PCs which should by Pentium or Pentium-standard. Last year Computer Weekly readers donated more than 500 PCs to the appeal. E-mail info@computeraid.org. Tel: 020-7281 0091.
