An accumulation of equipment and materials that are “no longer of use and/or may be in non-working condition” is being disposed of by the Manteca Unified School District.

Some are being given away, others are being auctioned to the highest bidder, and the rest sold to recyclers or dismantled for disposal.

Items that can still be used and are in working condition will be given away through an in-house process. This means sites in the district where these can find new homes will be identified, and the leftovers will then be tagged for the final trip to the garbage heap. There will be two rounds of this give-away process before disposal can be started.

This will conducted in four different ways:

•Electronic waste (e-waste) such as TVs, circuit cards, cabling, computer monitors, computers, computer peripherals, copiers, fax machines, DVD players, radios, stereos, printers – except those which can be traded in for new ones – will be sold to a recycler that is certified by the State of California.

•Those that do not fall under the e-waste category and can be resold – e.g., food service equipment and microscopes – will be sold via auction to the highest bidder through the district’s agreement with Inter Scola.

•Steel from the various equipment being disposed such as desks will be sold to a steel recycler. Money generated from all of the above will be deposited in the district’s general fund and will be used to help offset processing costs.

•The rest of the disposable items will be dismantled and any recyclable parts, such as plastic or wood, will be classified and placed in appropriate recycling containers.

All of the equipment and materials identified for disposal have been declared as “obsolete” by the Board of Trustees.

Some of computer equipment is being discarded because the cost of having them repaired is more than what it would take to buy a replacement, or that they can’t be repaired at all. Such is the case of a 1996 Ford Contour car in the district’s transportation department that has logged 140,000 miles, along with a 1988 Chrysler Gran Fury which “will not pass smog.” Other technology items being divested have simply reached the end of their life cycles.