Had a good meeting with James (pictured) at Access Space in Sheffield last week and he was keen to help me get some recycled PC hardware to Ladakh. They got about 10 PCs worth of motherboards, processors, ram, network cards and video cards for me to take. As important, he gave me a lovely little book which explains the philosophy of Access Space in a really simple way using cartoons. I’ve already used in to explain to my friends what I’m going to do and the way I’m going to do it.
I sent some motherboards and memory last autumn after getting back from Ladakh, and found it to be cheaper than I expected, but these components are really light. Each hard disk drive weighs about half a kilo – these are the heavy guys. And you wouldn’t want to waste money sending ‘worthless’ (zero cost) technology to India.
Of course I wouldn’t send/take cases, power supplies, keyboards or mice. Probably cheaper to buy processor fans over there too.
Costs
Parcel Force ~£13/kg (see)
Virgin Atlantic excess baggage £27/kilo
So if I have too much when I get to the airport I’ll just chuck a couple of hard drives in the bin.
