Author: admin

When to get the upgrade…

Like anything you use on a daily basis, after normal wear-and-tear over years, a product might just no longer work anymore (similar to cars, televisions, and other household items). In the case of computers, I typically recommend to friends and family to run through a few steps to determine if they really do need to say goodbye to an old system:

  • Do you clean up old software and remove unnecessary data?
  • Do you run updates on the system (firmware, operating system, and software updates)?
  • Have you run antivirus or anti-malware scans?
  • Could you spend a little money on extra hardware to speed things up? Have you ever run hardware diagnostics?

Typically, the first 3 questions can be easily taken care of and diagnose if there are issues on the software side. Sometimes I recommend a fresh operating system install (after backing up your data and noting what software you use) just to get things running nicely again. If that doesn’t do the trick, it’s a good thing that hardware providers tend to have hardware diagnostic software that you can run (Ex: Dell Diagnostics, HP PC Hardware Diagnostics, Apple Diagnostics, etc). Usually you download the software onto a bootable USB drive and boot into the diagnostics software itself. With newer systems, they tend to ship with a factory diagnostics partition already installed on the drive, which you can boot into as well.

Usually, I recommend new hard drives or addition of RAM for most slow systems after double-checking if hardware diagnostics found anything wrong with the system (it will specify whether your system has faulty RAM, CPU, video card, or numerous other pieces of hardware). In the case that the system has good hardware and recently cleaned up software, yet it still seems bogged down, it might just be that you do need a new system at this time.

Where does e-Waste go?

After our electronics reach end-of-life or break, where do they go? While some of these are reused or recycled responsibly, most of our e-waste ends up in landfills, incinerators, and villages around the globe. There has been a primary focus on commercial IT waste standards, along with numerous municipalities in the US that push for local electronic waste disposal. We also can’t forget about all of the other household items that are typically thrown away after becoming obsolete – dishwashers, washers/dryers, microwaves, televisions. While Boston e-Cycle does not take care of particular household appliances at this time, we are planning to work with other responsible recyclers in the New England area to make it easy to dispose of these items (and give you some peace of mind in doing so).

One major town in China that has taken a lot of US exported e-waste is Guiyu. Most of the inhabitants here have their own businesses that dismantle used electronics to extract valuable materials (such as gold, lead, and copper). It’s very scary to learn that multiple dust samples taken throughout the town’s environment contained unsafe amounts lead, as much as 50 times the amount that is considered “safe”.

With a bit of effort from everybody, we can help to reduce the amount of electronic waste that’s thrown away and sent off to towns like Guiyu. As our older commercial electronics continue to be disposed of, hopefully we can prevent the mass amount of improper disposal of this older equipment.

Up and running very shortly…

Hi!

Jon DiLeo here, founder and owner of Boston e-Cycle, LLC. I started this company up initially because I consider myself a very heavy recycler and reuser of items. Being in the IT field for almost the past decade, I’ve seen so much old equipment pile up and get tossed out the door (only to end up with a small portion at a local scrapper, and the rest being spread elsewhere…probably some landfills or incinerators). It is my ultimate goal to become the #1 recycler of all used electronics in the world. Hefty goal, but it’s something to strive for.

Anyways, you’ve either landed at this site because you either know me personally or possibly through one or two related connections. If you’re in the IT field and manage your inventory, I would love to become your go-to guy for all things that you are looking to get rid of; whether it be an old Dell tower server from 1998, a huge CRT monitor from the past, or even a desktop from the past few years that just needs to be brought back to life. Essentially I will work with you to pick up all of these items, dispose of your hard drives and other media using a third-party vendor (NAID Certified), and do some fun math using our price list to see how much I owe you, or you owe me. I figure most of the time, you’ll end up with a check.

I hope to work with you soon! Please use the contact page to touch base and I will get back to you promptly with whatever information you need from me.

Thanks and take care,
Jon