I have several old computers, which are too slow and too loud and too big for me to find use for them. Fortuitously, there's a
discussion up on Slashdot on what to do about this, which pointed me to
Freecycle. Marvel of marvels, there's a Freecycle group in my small burb town. I'ma post my stuff. The other suggestions were
Craigslist (which hasn't worked for me so far), putting the stuff out on the curb (in the weather?), or paying a small fee to Office Depot or Staples.
They also said in that thread and
this one that if someone offers to recycle your old electronics for free, the odds are that they're shipping them somewhere in the Third World and dumping them, because it's cheap and it makes other people's kids get lead poisoning instead of ours. The slashdotters said
ban.org can tell you who does this and who doesn't.