"James Burgett of the Alameda County Computer Resource Center calls himself a 'tattooed freak' and a recovering drug addict, but CNN is calling him a hero (video) for diverting tons of computers from landfills, installing Ubuntu Linux on them, and giving them out to schools, non-profits, and poor people.

"On March 1st, the Alameda County Computer Resource Center and Untangle are pairing up to run a massive installfest, pairing donated computer hardware with Ubuntu GNU/Linux..."

I live in a small town on the sparse side of Oregon... hardly any computer geeks, and no recycling of any kind, let alone finding a use for older computer gear. But thanks to some cool folks at Linuxchix.org, I learned of two excellent resources for recycling or adopting out old stuff.

"UNESCO gathered a group of partners to produce two guides to encourage the development of sustainable computer recycling plants."

IDG World Expo has teamed up with open source security gateway provider Untangle and electronics recycler Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC) to host an Installfest for Schools at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco next week. Volunteers will refurbish older discarded computers with free and open source software (FOSS) before they are donated to schools in need.

Nowadays, if you can’t log on you may feel a little left out. Just ask Barbara Sheppard and her daughter, Christina. They know how difficult life can be without a computer. Now, Barbara and her daughter have access to e-mail and the internet at home, and it’s all because of All Walks Of Life, Inc. and it’s IT program, “The Goon Squad”.
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ONE OF MY INTERESTS is in recycling and reusing older computers. With the right choice of software, even a five-year-old computer can be a fast, responsive machine with bags of life left in it.

"James Burgett is a great guy. He is collecting old computers from companies and individuals, checks and in some cases repairs them, and then gives them away to those who cannot afford to buy. He has done it for 12 years, and each system is delivered with a free OS."

At Crossbytes we are trying to be as green as possible in our computer recycling center and we also pass that on to all parts of our processes. We use Fedora (which forms the basis for the operating system Red Hat Enterprise) because it has shown in testing to be the greenest.