I donated some spindles of burned media and programs to Salvation Army expecting they'd throw 'em out. They're selling 'em for $3.

yukichigai@kbin.social to Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 606 points –
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I donated some spindles of burned media and programs to Salvation Army expecting they'd throw 'em out

Good for them for not throwing them away, but if you assumed they would, why "donate" (more like dump) them to charity in the first place? They're not there to provide guilt free disposal for your garbage..

Fair question: I saw they already had a partial spindle of mixed disks for sale. Just the one though, so I couldn't be sure it wasn't a fluke. Turns out it wasn't.

The spindles weren't the only thing I donated, just so we're clear. I just mixed them in with the rest of boxes of stuff, some of it pretty good. Someone can now snag an OG release copy of Bioshock 2 or Doom 3 for a song. Oh, and the entire Half Life Collection.

I honestly thought you were meaning to give them trash. I never feel bad about dropping off old furniture and junk at chain thrift stores making profit run by wackadoos. Dropping off after hours saves me a trip to the dump. Much cheap for me too.

Yeah, I interned at a second hand (can't remember if charify or not but probably) store for 4 weeks or so when I was in primary school (internships are part of the curriculum), and fucking hell.

People really like dumping a shit ton of clothes and random stuff. I recall testing like 10 pairs of in-ear headphones some of which were pretty disgusting and covered in makeup and often earwax. For some reason, they were apparently sellable. Some pairs looked brand new, but most didn't. Somehow they even sold quite a few.

And no, I didn't stick the headphones in my ears, fuck no.

I know that old media/tech platforms have a use that can be helpful. Where should I donate unused/functional tech that can be more than e-waste that isn't something I want to make money from? If I'm sitting on floppy discs and know they are going to help someone, who do I give them to?