Comment by theandrewbailey

6 days ago

After using Linux just about everywhere else, I moved my main desktop/gaming rig to Linux about a year ago. (The last Windows install I have is my retro PC.)

I work in e-waste recycling, and it's my first Windows-free job. A family friend called me for advice on her old decrepit laptop. I told her about my work "laptop": a Surface Pro tablet with Linux. I just sold one to her, partially on the security and privacy advantages of Linux.

3 comments

theandrewbailey

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ProllyInfamous  6 days ago

>I work in e-waste recycling

How does one get into this, preferably without having to be a yardie for a few years (I'm an electrician with a degree in chemistry)?

Fellow Win7Pro retro machiner.

  • theandrewbailey  5 days ago

    I'm not sure if my story is useful for you: I had a friend working there when they had an opening. He recommended me, and the boss asked if I knew my stuff; he said yes. I'm struggling to remember how my friend got in there.

    I work in the refurb division. I walk though the receiving and demanufacturing areas looking for things that would be worth our time to resell.

    Though if you have a chemistry degree, you'd probably be more helpful to the people we sell scrap to. From what the boss told me, they're the ones who shred PCBs, drives, etc. and dissolve them in acid to extract metals and other materials, like one would with mined ore.

    And our certifications require us to use buyers who don't turn around and ship things off to the third world for "processing": https://sustainableelectronics.org/welcome-to-r2v3/

    • ProllyInfamous  5 days ago

      Thanks for taking time to respond.

      >I had a friend working there

      Also how I got my first tech job, working in a laptop repair facility (on-site for a large engineering team).

      >you'd probably be more helpful to the people we sell scrap to

      Thanks for the certification links (which has a map with hundreds of locations — none near me, but have been looking for a smaller community and this is helpful information).