Computers come and computers go, but what do you do with an old computer. It feels kind of strange to just throw a giant CRT monitor or a gigantic computer tower in the trash doesn’t it? It does for me anyway.

First, you should strip it for useful parts. The memory is going to be the most transferable to another computer, or you could sell it. You can also salvage CD/DVD drives, hard drives, etc. If you’re an extreme packrat, you may even consider saving some screws for future computers. Sell any parts of the computer that may be of value. If you build your own computers, you can often reuse several computer parts this way.

Once you’ve taken what you need, then you can feel good about throwing the thing away.