Had a guy at the recycling center yell at me for tossing a working 2004 ThinkPad

I was dropping off old electronics at the county transfer station last Tuesday, and this older fella saw me put a ThinkPad T42 in the e-waste bin. He pulled it out, wiped the dust off, and said 'this machine is more repairable than anything you'll buy today.' Then he showed me how the RAM and hard drive came out with one screw. He was mad but not mean. I let him take the laptop home. Made me wonder if we give up on these old machines too fast - anyone else run into someone who rescued your junk?

2 comments

2 Comments

nathanbennett6d ago

That T42 guy had a point though. I gotta ask - what exactly makes you keep something like that around? Is it the nostalgia, the idea of having a backup machine, or just a moral thing about not wasting stuff? Because I gotta tell you, I've got a 2012 MacBook Pro in my closet I can't bring myself to toss. It's slow, battery barely holds a charge, but I keep thinking "what if I need a DVD drive someday." That's stupid, right? Or is that the same kind of thinking that guy had?

margaretf406d ago

The T42 guy had a good heart, but keeping a laptop from 2004 isn't practical for most people. I tried to revive an old Dell from that era a few years back, and the website loading times were brutal, like waiting for paint to dry. You'd spend more time fighting with outdated drivers and security risks than actually using it. It's okay to let go of tech that can't keep up with daily life, even if it feels wasteful.