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Donate Your Old Computer Equipment to A Good Cause

jplatt — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0400

Got any old computer equipment lying around? You could recycle it (see the Green Tech archives for plenty of stories about how), or you could put it in the hands of someone who will get some good use out of it.

That's the idea behind Computers With Causes, a charity that accepts old computers from individuals and businesses, refurbishes them, and gives them to people or organizations who need them.

This reduces e-waste, cuts down on clutter, and puts perfectly good electronics back to work where they can help change the world for the people or groups who receive them.

According to their website, "Computers with causes evaluates each and every donation on a case by case basis. Whenever financially beneficial, computers with causes will repair, refurbish, and properly prepare donated property for placement into an educational environment or other cause we support. The ultimate goal being to maximize the benefit of your donations both financially and through educational purposes to the communities in which we live."

Functioning computers will be put back to use in the community (say, for education purposes, use in foster homes, or for disabled veterans or other needy Americans). Non-fuctioning computers can even be useful, as they'll get donated to schools to help teach computer repair.

Anything Computers With Causes receives that can't be used gets recycled, using what they call a "zero landfill" process.

Donations earn you tax deductions, and some donations can even earn you a free vacation!

So if you've got an extra computer lying around, give Computers With Causes a shot. You'll benefit, the earth will benefit, and so will your community.

Support Green Charities by Buying or Selling on eBay

jplatt — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0400

Looking for a way to support a green charity, but you don't have much cash on hand? Try selling something on eBay and donating the proceeds to the enviro-charity of your choice.

eBay's Giving Works program lets any seller choose to donate 10-100% of the proceeds of their sales to any of 14,000 charities.

Green charities registered for Giving Works include all of the biggies: the World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace, the NRDC and many others.

There are a few restrictions and details that sellers need to know before they list their items:

A donation of at least $5.00 is required if your listing sells (so no selling $1 items)
The donation will be collected from the payment method you put on file for donation payments (so you'll get what's left over if you donate less than 100% to charity)
You still need to pay listing fees to sell your items on Giving Works, but you'll get a 30% fee credit if your item sells
MissionFish, a registered nonprofit, collects and distributes your donation. According to eBay, they "retain a small portion of each donation to help cover their costs."
Your donation earns you a tax deduction, and you'll get all the necessary paperwork to support that deduction

You can also take advantage of this program as a buyer. Just search the Giving Works site, or search their database to find a charity that you want to support and the auctions that support the chairty of your choice.

eBay says this site helps to support non-profits while also living up to the old environmental credo of "reduce, reuse, recycle." Give it a tree and see how much you can donate as a result!

Do Green Good Every Time You Search the Internet

jplatt — Thu, 29 May 2008 12:00:00 -0400

My brother works for a small theatre, and they get some of their funding from an unusual source: a search engine.

Like some 59,000 other non-profits -- including hundreds of environmental organizations -- my brother's theatre is signed up on GoodSearch, a search engine that generates income for organizations with every search.

Here's how it works: You visit GoodSearch and first do a search for a charity that matters to you. You could pick the WWF, StopGlobalWarming.org, Bat Conservation International, or American Forests to name just a few. Once you find the charity you want, click verify. After that, every search you make on GoodSearch generates a donation for your chosen charity.

The funds come from advertising on search results, the same formula that has made Google a multi-billion dollar company. But GoodSearch donates 50% of its search revenues to charities and schools. The company estimates that every search sends 1 cent to a charity. That may not seem like much, but if 100 people support a charity and search just one time a day, that sends $365 a year to that charity.

(And if you're a web power-user like me, and you search a few dozen times an hour for your work, the donations really add up!)

GoodSearch's search results are powered by Yahoo, the number 2 search engine, so they're pretty reliable. And for charities, the funds are like found money.

Give it a try! Who knows, you might never Google again...

New Thoughts On Old Clothes

tdupuy — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

It’s never been too complicated to get rid of your old clothes. Just donate them. Goodwill, Salvation Army or your local thrift shop is open and ready for the donations. Even if you think that they are too tattered to be worn, they can still be used in recycling.

Recycling clothes, in the truest definition of the term, can be difficult. Textile recyclers don't have the time or the means to sort through individual donations, so often they only buy clothes from a collection site like a Goodwill or an AmVet drop-off center.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't donate your unusable clothing to a nonprofit. "The problem people have is that if clothing doesn't look presentable to them, they shouldn't donate it," says Larry Groipen, president of ERC Wiping Products, which sources the material for its cleaning cloths from textile recyclers and nonprofits.

However, "It can be recycled no matter what condition it's in," Groipen notes. Just be sure what you give is clean and dry, says Bragale. "Deeply soiled or mildewed clothing can contaminate an entire bin," she cautions, "and then it all has to go to the trash."

http://thegreenguide.com/doc/123/donatedclothes

If you travel abroad, recycle there.

When I travel I bring old clothes that I am ready to get rid of in my suitcase. You can either leave them with the house keeping staff of your hotel or hostel (leave a note to let them know that you don’t want them shipped to you) or give them to a charity there.

When I was in Peru, there were charities already set up to receive clothing and send it off to the poorer villages. I left most of the clothes I brought with me, save my hiking boots, and then proceeded to quickly re-use the new space in my suitcase with same local wears. It saves on what would otherwise be shipping costs and extra baggage fees. Plus your old clothes may mean a lot to someone in need.

But you don’t have to travel to a developing country to do this. Remember the US still has a 17% poverty rate. If I have a purse or a bag that I am done with, something that is still in good shape and not size specific, I’ll leave it in garbage pail (or near it) in my hotel room when I check out (again with a note saying I do not want this item). This way, the stuff you don’t use can once again become useful to another -- and it’s keeping salvageable goods out of the landfill.