ThinkGeek Giving Away Damaged Stock to Hackerspaces, Schools

Education Energy & Sustainability Technology
ThinkGeek Giving Away Damaged Stock to Hackerspaces, Schools

How cool is that? From Blurgh! The ThinkGeek Blog:

We have a problem. And it’s growing at a rate proportional to our return pile. We can’t, in good conscience, resell damaged electronics. And we can’t donate them to charity–the saddest kid in the world is one with a handheld video game that won’t turn on. Garbage, then? Not good for the environment. Luckily for us, there’s an entire class of scavengers out there ready to pick the bones of our helicopters, keyboards, and interactive t-shirts: hackers, makers, and crafty techy types.

They’re even polling interest in a possible subscription service. [Thanks, John!]

10 thoughts on “ThinkGeek Giving Away Damaged Stock to Hackerspaces, Schools

  1. Anonymous says:

    :O
    Awesome idea… would help reduce waste, and give us makers a nice little stock pile of other peoples junk (our treasure).
    Now im kinda surprised this didnt get though up sooner..

  2. edm00se says:

    Freakin A ThinkGeek. Freakin A.

  3. Rob De Hart says:

    This is great. I live in a particularly small town with no sort of electronic recycling. I imagine sometimes people just dumping everything they don’t use or doesn’t ‘work’. We could do with a nice hackerspace if only we had the space.

  4. StacyD says:

    My BF and I teach kids electronics so this would be amazingly useful! Plus, we like to fix toys and donate them, it would be amazing if we could help kids fix the toy that they get which is broken and they get to take it home!

  5. Chris says:

    great idea thinkgeek! much better than the “geek points” system you currently use to get rid of
    all your damaged merch. I eventually just stopped cashing them in, every single item i’ve ever
    cashed them in for has arrived broken -_-

Comments are closed.

Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
Tagged

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

View more articles by Sean Michael Ragan

ADVERTISEMENT

Maker Faire Bay Area 2023 - Mare Island, CA

Escape to an island of imagination + innovation as Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its 15th iteration!

Buy Tickets today! SAVE 15% and lock-in your preferred date(s).

FEEDBACK