Practical Suggestions for What to Do with Used Electronics?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I find I've got a growing collection of used, but properly working electronics at home, and I have no good idea what to do with them.

 

Things like Linksys G wifi routers and similar. I'm not necessarily looking to sell them, but nor am I looking to put them in the trash.

 

Surely there must be some place where people can get some useful value out of them?

[oldcarguy]

I think its a good idea to find someone to RE-USE old electronics and not just rip them apart for 10 baht worth of copper etc

 

 

[dddave]

I remember so clearly sometime around the Millennium when original Mac's began appearing curbside on trash day along with monochrome monitors and dot-matrix printers.  You can't even give older technology away.

You can't pass it off on the kids; they know more about the latest and greatest than you do. Grandma has her own laptop and your aunt has an i-phone and doesn't need any more than that.

I recently attempted to clear out my storage room. I had three older ink-jet printers, a couple of routers and an old laptop that I couldn't bear to throw in the trash.

I tried the building maintenance guy; usually willing to take anything discarded...just shook his head "Mai ow"  Same with the guy who maintains the trash area.

There are a couple of shophouse computer repair shops nearby, each with walls stacked with old stuff...PC's with floppy drives, old CRT monitors, I had some hope but when I showed them pictures of what I was willing to give for free, it was once again: "Mai Ow!".

Finally, into the trash room they went.  Perhaps the trash truck guys, who sift through everything before consigning it to the hopper may have rescued my gear...but probably not. Even they don't want old technology.

I hope you have better luck giving the stuff away than I did.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Thanks for the post... It's a weird thing here.  Reality is, there are lots of Thai schools in the country that don't even have electricity. So given that things operate at that LOW level, I'm pretty sure someone somewhere here could actually use some perfectly well-operating Wifi G routers. But no clue on how to find them.

 

[BTW, whatever happened to the supposed plan to buy cheap Chinese tablets for school-kids nationwide? ]

 

As for recycling, back in the U.S., an industry has grown up for "responsible" recycling of electronics, that hopefully means a lot of stuff that should NOT end up in landfills isnt just tossed there.  But here, AFAICT, nobody cares or pays any attention to such things at all, and everything and anything is suitable for going in the landfill, no matter what it ends up doing to the environment.

 

I guess I'll try to check around some more. I really hate sending perfectly good and working stuff into the garbage.

 

[damo]

If your keen.

 

 

[dotpoom]

I usually leave them beside the bin on the Soi's......they're usually gone within minutes.....hopefully somebody is getting a "buck" out of them.

[Paul Laycock]

I recycle all my old plastic, can's, cardboard and electrical equipment,

You won't get a lot of money but better than trashing them, not sure of the procedure in Bangkok but out here in the sticks the recycle people show up every couple of months.

[AlQaholic]

I've been having the same problem, old blue ray player, a collection of old smart phones, a few monitors, three old desktops, a few routers, network cables, chargers....what the heck does one do with all this old junk?

[fruitman]

2 hours ago, dotpoom said:

I usually leave them beside the bin on the Soi's......they're usually gone within minutes.....hopefully somebody is getting a "buck" out of them.

 

Last month i put about 6 routers at the soi, open to see. They were gone within minutes. 

 

Then i found the box in the park, 1 or 2 items were missing and the rest scattered over the lawn.

 

Welcome to Thailand.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

14 minutes ago, fruitman said:

 

Last month i put about 6 routers at the soi, open to see. They were gone within minutes.

 

Usually, when I leave stuff outside, it's NON-working, and either gets picked up by the trash guys or the scavenger guys who come around regularly on their little moto-carts (who knows where the stuff they collect goes...)

 

In the case I'm asking about, everything is in perfect working condition -- just from farang standards, older oudated technology.

 

[Pdaz]

Every couple of Months a truck goes past my house with a speaker announcing "rhup sua khong gao" - Service buying old stuff. They are happy to take pretty much anything and pay no less than what you'd get of some cheap charlie facebook secondhand page. Alternatively there are plenty of junkyards and shops that buy secondhand stuff. All depends on whether you just want to be rid of it for "beer money" or expect to get close to your original purchase price back ( good luck with that )

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I'd settle for beer money and hopefully the idea that someone somewhere in need would get good use out of it, instead of ending up in a garbage pile somewhere.

 

[Grubster]

Just ask where the nearest scrap yard is, they will recycle a lot of it and may resell some of it. I doubt they will give much if anything for it but who cares, you'll be doing the right thing.