A skilled employee turned a dusty piece of "e-waste" into the envy of the internet, showing how offices are often too quick to dispose of aging electronics.
What's happening?
In a post at r/thinkpad, the Reddit user shared about their salvage of a Lenovo ThinkPad X220, reviving a machine they said hadn't been powered on in years.
"Got this returned from a defunct office at work as 'e-waste.' Originally had Windows 7 and hadn't been turned on since 2019," they wrote.
The accompanying photo shows the old ThinkPad booting up with a fresh Linux install — a sight that drew cheers, tips, and even some light jealousy in the comments.
"This e waste seems better than my current laptop," shared one commenter.
"Ewaste? Etreasure!" another succinctly said.
Why is e-waste concerning?
Short for "electronic waste," e-waste represents one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world. Unlike products made from only paper or plastic, electronics often contain valuable materials like lithium batteries, copper, and gold, as well as plastic components.
When discarded prematurely, these materials can become net financial losses with environmental impacts. Each laptop takes production energy, labor, and resources that may not be recouped. Creating new devices to replace consumers' "old" items just perpetuates this cycle.
In the United States alone, millions of usable electronics are thrown out annually, and some estimates suggest that just 15-20% of e-waste is properly recycled. When not disposed of safely, environmental consequences can include soil and water contamination from heavy metals, battery leakage, and microplastics.
And even when recycling guidelines are followed? There's still the overwhelming frustration of squandering perfectly good tech that could have had a second or even third life.
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Giving me money back 💰 What can be done about this?
It's unclear whether the original company that marked the ThinkPad as e-waste has broader policies around tech reuse or recycling. However, this instance may have been unique as the laptop seemed to be left over from a closed office.
Still, but for the original poster, this easily could have been a missed opportunity. Many companies fail to implement standardized tech take-back programs, leaving employees unaware of how to responsibly offload outdated or unneeded gear.
Meanwhile, some manufacturers, like Dell and Apple, have launched official buyback or refurbishment programs aimed at reducing e-waste and recovering valuable components. And more individuals and organizations are waking up to the economic and environmental realities of e-waste.
If you've got old electronics collecting dust, there are many ways to get them out of your house and maybe even make some money with them, like trade-in programs that take e-waste from users and issue cash or credit in return.
There are also many new services like Trashie's Tech Take Back Box, which lets people ship old electronics from home and earn rewards.
Or, if you're tech-savvy like this Redditor, you can always use your computer knowledge to give an old system a fresh, new upgrade.
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