In general, I agree with this thread - HOWEVER....
In the last month, we have begun to 'keep' our old computers instead of giving them to the non-profits and/or 'scrap guy' that would come pick them up for free and get all that "junk" out of our way (we buy mixed pallet lots from gov't and other auctions and sell the tech/lab/medical stuff on ebay and other online sites, including our own)
What we found actually amazed us!
It started when the scrap guy told us that he had picked up nearly $500 from just taking the computers, printers and monitors to the yard! He spent about two hours on two loads each and then just took it right over and sold it for poundage - and got nearly $500???
We had to look into this ourselves as that is nothing to sneeze at (certainly if you even have to rent a truck and hire a 'helper' for $70/hr, you can still make a nice dinner and drinks! - btw, no, we aren't looking for helpers at that price.....
We had been reading this forum and seeing that most feel that working computers 'for a living' is not worth it. Again, I TEND to agree, however....
We started taking the computers apart (what FUN! - certainly nice when one won't open till you take a big hammer after it or just toss it up in the air and let it crash down!!! 8)
We separated the 'value' stuff, going by the boardsort.com buying guide as well as our local scrap yard in what they buy. We found one that will take any aluminum (all sorts mixed together), copper, 'wire' (non-clean copper) and 'motors' [transformers ok too] as well as the 'tin' - all mixed metal, plastic, etc., so it makes it pretty easy, as well as separated stainless steel (which a lot of the heat sinks in computers actually are). We have stuck with them, though there may be others in town that will pay more if we sorted it out differently.
We found that, for us, shipping to boardsort.com costs about $.82 per pound (high, I know.... - we are working on that), so even though they may take other 'bits', it makes no 'cents' to send it to them, so we take that stuff to the local scrapper.
Sent some pics to Chris at boardsort.com and he helped us learn how to sort the computer boards and such for the most money and we sent our first list and got paid within a few hours - BEFORE we even put the cards in a box!(IMHO, boardsort.com is "THE" place to go to sell computer cards and such - fast service with a smile and pays UP FRONT - every load with them, every time, EXCELLENT)
We got around $500 for the cards out of just 25 computers, plus over $300 for scrap metal (though there was a bit of other stuff mixed in there from other scrapping we'd done, so perhaps only $250 or so was from the computers) - at any rate, let's say we got $700 from 25 computers AND we kept the processors and ram chips and most of the fingers from the cards (waiting for gold price to go back up, or a 'rainy day'....)
PLUS, as we were pulling them apart, we found a few cards that weren't the 'norm' (LAN/Modem, video, etc.) and looked them up - some of them have quite a bit of value by themselves, so we are offering them online (around $300 total - but gotta get them sold!)
With that, I really can't say that computers are not worth scrapping - even after shipping, we cleared (counting the processors and ram, etc. at today's rate) well over $300 each 'up-front' plus maybe another $200+ in later sale stuff - all for just 5 hours work! Oh, not Donald Trump wages, but not bad either! Certainly something that pays better than sitting around drinking beer (but, then, if you are like me, you'll actually do BOTH at the same time!
I, for one, am looking forward to getting another load of computers to crap - soon!