atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information What to do with old telecom equipment?

Hey all,

I have acquired a fair amount of old telecom equipment (KSUs, analog/digital telephone sets, system cards etc.) that are mostly non-functional and I no longer need. I have held on to them in order to repair and resell them if necessary but as more of my customers upgrade to new systems I have more and more old inventory that I have no use for. I have tried to take a couple of cabinets to local recyclers over the years but they have refused to take them. At this point I'm just running out of space and need to get rid of a bunch of this old equipment any way I can but would rather not break any dumping laws if possible.

Any recommendations?

Recyclers are supposed to take electronic waste. Have you tried recently since it became illegal to throw it in the dumpster or garbage? Funny, we used to get $.01/lb until it became illegal. Now they just take it.

I see you're in CA. Don't they have like a binder full of regulations punishable by death on how to dispose of electronic waste?

-Hal

AES Electronics Recycling Inc. located in Fullerton is listed as an electronics recycling facility.

hbiss, I haven't been to any recyclers recently, it's possible I just haven't found the right place. The couple that I've tried were only interested in cell phones or PCs. And I don't know the exact regulations but it is CA so I am sure there are plenty. I'm still adjusting to the grocery bag ban.

fonemanlee, I will give them a call and see what they say, thank you for finding that for me.

edit: AES says they'll take whatever I've got. Guess I'll be stopping there shortly. Thank you.

The town I live in (although not in California) will accept non-hazardous electronic waste if I drive the items to the town's Public Works building. There is a covered cart located outside one of the entrances.

I just have to go to the office, show and ID describe what is being disposed of and assure that printers, if applicable, have no ink or toner still inside. The last time I disposed of some old printers, I saw some Polycom & Cisco phones had been tossed in.

Does your city/town have such a service?

right now the govt agency I am working for has me "wiping" the incoming call logs and memory buttons off of +/- 1800 Nortel sets of different models before we send them out for recycling.

Its a real pain when some of the sets have up to 40 incoming calls logged and the delete key has to be hit for each call. Others I can use the # key to clear everything.

I should be happy I am paid by the hour to do it and I figure its going to take at least 4 days to do it.

I would think running them over with your truck would be a lot quicker.

-Hal

Once again Hal has the best solution.

tablesaw or bandsaw should do the trick too.

Previous consultant they had said they could get $18 CDN per phone a few years ago from a used set broker, but they sat on them. Not sure if management thinks they will be worth more now if they look for a buyer.

After doing a about another 80 or 90 today I'd settle for tapping them with a sledge hammer to "wipe the memory".

I'd still have to pull off the telephone number tags out of the scrap to keep the new VP of IT Security happy as he doesn't want to see any link back to the company on the phones.