by Alchemist
With the Christmas Season over, and new toys in our hands, it is time to decide what to do with our old equipment. Many times, people overlook many good uses for older computer equipment that could really make a difference in people’s lives. Here are a few suggestions to consider:
Donation
A computer is something many of us take for granted. Many families still do not have access or the financial means to buy even the most basic of a computer. A $200 desktop is cheap to many in the Eggxpert community but represents a huge investment to people on a fixed income. Instead of leaving that old system in the closet for years or throwing it away, give the system to someone who will make a difference with it.
Organizations like Goodwill accept working computer donations at many of their facilities. 
Systems that are five years old or younger are wonderful gifts for families that other wise have no access to a computer. These systems will be given to families for word processing, children’s homework, and basic internet browsing. It can make more of a difference to a family than you think possible.
Recycling
Aluminum Cans, Newspapers, Cardboard, & Computers. What do they all have in common? Each of these can be recycled.
With so much attention being called on the global warming and damage to the environment, recycling a computer often does not come up. Many of the components on motherboards can be removed and recycled or even reused in other components.
Recent estimates state that 335 million computers will be thrown away by the end of 2007, containing 1.4 billion pounds of lead, 2.3 million pounds of cadmium, 1.6 million pounds of hexavalent chromium, and 500,000 pounds of mercury.
You can contact your local recycling center or waste management center for locations of computer recycling. Many local governments have special locations setup for just this type of equipment.
Folding@Home
Stanford University’s Folding@Home project is a great way to put your older computer to great use. The Folding@Home project is a small application that is run on a computer that uses the horsepower of your processor when you are not using it. 
The project’s goal is to understand how proteins work in the body and what happens when they work incorrectly. When the program is active, it works on a specific protein project that Stanford is researching. You computer and several others around the world process the data and send it back to Stanford. This happens thousands of times over each day on millions of computers around the world. Once the program is active, it requires no interaction from you. The program can be set to run all the time or just when the screensaver is active.
I hope this gives you some ideas on what can be done with your old equipment. While no one of us can save the whole world, we all should do what we can to take care of our small part of it.