I was talking to someone at work today, and he said that he used to have a job taking a sledgehammer to outdated (but still new) electronics that the company that made them wanted to get rid of. They didn't want the old products competing with the new products, so instead of selling them cheaply or giving them away they'd have about 10 people go through about 12 pallets a day each of electronics goods and just destroy them. The hazardous parts they'd separate out and put into a different recycling machine. He said that he broke up everything from expensive digital cameras to flat panel televisions up to copiers the size of pick up truck beds.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
Since my DH is in IT, every so often he comes across old electronics at work. His current job has a "dungeon" where old computers and such go to die. He has to follow a process, but if he has a good reason to take any of it, they generally give it to him. But he has been in jobs where they'd rather destroy something than give it to someone in the trenches, or a school that needs computers, or anyone else.
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"There is order in the way the Lord reveals His will to mankind. . .we cannot receive revelation for someone else's stewardship." L. Tom Perry
My wife worked at the old Hallmark in town when we were first married. When they closed they whatever they didn't sell had to go in the compactor. The managers had to sign off that it all was destroyed. They even inquired if it could be donated to charity and they were not allowed to do anything other than put it in the compactor. My wife was upset about how wasteful it was. The company said that the reason they did this was so the employees wouldn't steal, hide, or try and resell it. It still seemed wasteful to me.
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Jason (Formerly salesortonscom)
As I walk through this earth, nothing can stop, the Duke of Mirth!