Plugged In - our IT Recycling Project
Background
Our IT recycling project has been running since the pandemic. We gave our first recycled IT package out in May 2020.
At the beginning of the pandemic, our members told us that people they worked with were struggling to work, live and teach their families as they had no or limited IT and internet. From this, the project was born. We asked members, families and friends to donate unwanted IT equipment and members to refer people to receive them.
With this in mind, the Network initially set up the IT Recycling Project in partnership with Gift Tech and Glasgow Clyde College. Old IT equipment were wiped and installed with software by experts from the college. Members were able to refer people to receive this new recycled/refurbished equipment.
Today, Plugged In continues to take donations of IT equipment and referrals, from member organisations and partners in North West and North East Glasgow, for FREE refurbished IT equipment and wifi for people and families you work with in your community.
We recently received funding from Glasgow City Council Low Emission Zone Community Support Fund and are delighted to now be able to have a full time technician and expanding what we do into North East Glasgow. Find out more
Referrals
We have PC packages ready to give out. Each PC package contains a PC tower, monitor, mouse, keyboard, web cam and a ‘How to’ guide. Funding allowing, we aim to include free internet with our packages.
We also take referrals for laptops, tablets and mobile phones - please note there can be longer waiting times for these items (4-6 weeks).
We ask that all Referrer organisations read our Referrer Information Sheet before making a referral. If you have and questions, you can call or email Martina or Matthew on 07386217433 or hello.northwestglasgowvsn@outlook.com. Please use this referral form to make a referral request for an IT package.
We Need your IT Donations
What we can take:
- Laptops ( we can take all laptops - if we can't repair or refurbish them - we will wipe and ethically recycle them)
- Desktop PCs (Less than ten years old)
- Tablets (Must be without password and factory reset)
- Smartphones (Must be without password and factory reset)
- Optical USB or Wireless Mice
- USB or Wireless Keyboards
- Monitors (Must be working)
- HD Webcams
- WiFi Dongles, or MiFi boxes (SIM Powered routers)
- Three Pin Power Cables
- VGA Display Cables
- Tablet and Phone chargers (All varieties)
- Hard Drives (SSD or Spinning Disk)
Security
All donated PCs and laptop equipment is data wiped, and certification of this can be provided on request. A certificate is provided for each individual item once wiped when requested. The method we use to do this is Redkey Data Destruction. This software performs a full data wipe of IT equipment to industry standards and in line with regularity requirements outlines in GDPR. The software wipes the disk completely of all saved data and Operating System leaving a completely clean drive. Redkey has also been awarded ADISA industry certification. All our refurbished IT equipment is also PAT tested for electrical safety.
