Dell to Recycle Old Hardware for Free

Dell, the world’s leading producer of PCs, on Wednesday said it would offer users of its computers the opportunity to recycle their old hardware for free, regardless of whether they plan to purchase a new Dell computer, the Associated Press reports via the New York Post.

The free recycling program is already available to Dell customers in Europe, and it will be offered in the United States by September and the rest of the world by November, the AP reports.

Dell is the latest computer firm to announce extensions of its recycling program.  In May, Apple Computer made its recycling program free to people who buy a new Mac, regardless of their previous computers’ brands. Hewlett-Packard also said this week that it will run a number of recycling drives this summer in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico and Oregon, according to the AP.

Since 2004, Dell customers have had the option of recycling their old computers through the company, but they had to purchase a new Dell system first or pay $10 per box of old hardware, as long as the boxes weighed less than 50 pounds each, the AP reports.

Under the new plan, people looking to recycle old Dell products need only visit the company’s site, enter the appropriate serial number from the old hardware, pack the item in a box and schedule a time for it to be picked up, according to the AP. The boxes are then sent to one of Dell’s recycling facilities in the United States, according to the AP, instead of going to a landfill, where most hardware that is improperly discarded eventually ends up.

Dell representatives told the AP that individual customers are responsible for erasing, or “wiping” any sensitive or personal data on their machines before they send the hardware off to be recycled.

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