Raspberry Pi Foundation has launched a recycling program to rescue your devices and circuits forgotten in the drawers and give them a second life.
With this new initiative, the used Raspberry Pi mini-boards will return to the factory in which they were created, and there they will be reconditioned to return to the market at a lower price.
For this, Raspberry Pi Foundation has partnered with OKdo, a company specialized in the sale of hardware and software to build electronic devices.
OKdo will collect the old Raspberry Pi and transfer them to Sony’s factory in Wales, the main producer of Raspberry Pi in the United Kingdom, where the boards are tested and reconditioned. In return for recycling your board, you will get a discount voucher to use towards your next OKdo purchase.
“There are a lot of venerable Raspberry Pis out there doing useful stuff just as well as ever, and we take great care to make sure new versions of Raspberry Pi OS continue to run on these models, but we’re realists: we understand that ending up with older boards lying around doing nothing is a thing.” — explains the company in a statement.
The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, Pi 3 Model B + and Pi 4A are the first to participate in this recycling program, but surely other models will be added over time if the initiative turns out to be a success.
Products will be tested to standards set by the Raspberry Pi itself at the factory and repaired for resale with a 12-month warranty. The packaging will be made with ecological materials, and it will be clearly indicated that it is a recycled circuit, having a lower price.