Tell me what to do with old PC's

[Reagan1k 3042]

I've got a storage room here and every time someone upgrades a PC in the office, the old one goes in this musty archive. 

I've probably got 15 old towers - mostly Dell, collecting dust and taking up room.

I don't want to give them away as is, b/c they could have someone's personal data on them - albeit that data could be 10-15 years old in some cases.

What's the best course of action to free up this space?  I also have a bunch of old monitors - Could they be of value to anyone even if I donated those or will they just get tossed?

[pantone159 729]

Rip out the hard drives (the part with any personal data), and toss the rest of the PC into the trash. The technology for components changes so quickly, that it is not likely that any of the parts are useful anymore. I like to remove the fasteners from the hard drives (usually this requires the star-shaped screwdriver heads), and open them up. Then I check out the pretty drive platters inside (warning, sharp!), removing the platters if this is easy. This makes the data basically unreadable, though somebody who REALLY cared could still read something. Then I toss those in the trash as well.

CRT monitors have lead lining (which is why they are so heavy), so ideally they should be disposed of properly. I forget what I did with my last one, maybe I gave it to Goodwill or something. Flat screen LCD monitors might still be useful.

[Parliament 14598]

[gsoda3 3362]

I've got a storage room here and every time someone upgrades a PC in the office, the old one goes in this musty archive. 
I've probably got 15 old towers - mostly Dell, collecting dust and taking up room.
I don't want to give them away as is, b/c they could have someone's personal data on them - albeit that data could be 10-15 years old in some cases.
What's the best course of action to free up this space?  I also have a bunch of old monitors - Could they be of value to anyone even if I donated those or will they just get tossed?

Put them on your area Buy Nothing group.

[blacklab 12064]

give them to reglue

http://reglue.org/

they clean them up, put linux on them and give them to disadvantaged kids