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Free Computer Recycling & Disposal San Diego
Book Your Free Computer Recycling & Disposal Service
Drop off your computer for free recycling and disposal at any of our San Diego locations today. No appointment needed.
Schedule a free pickup for your home or business with 5+ electronic devices, including computers, laptops, monitors, servers, and printers.
If you have any questions, call us at (619) 889-1305 or email us at [email protected].
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Free Computer Recycling Drop-Off Near You in San Diego
Dream Electronic Recycling is San Diego’s only R2v3 certified electronics recycling facility, offering e-waste drop off in San Diego residents and businesses can rely on. Visit one of our 6 San Diego County locations to drop off your computers at no cost, request a free pickup, or schedule secure hard drive destruction
San Diego Recycling Center
4009 Hicock St STE D, San Diego, CA 92110
- Mon — Sat8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
No appointment needed
Get DirectionsChula Vista Recycling Center
819 Anita St, Chula Vista, CA 91911
- Mon — Sat8:00 AM – 4:00 PM
No appointment needed
Get DirectionsNorth County Recycling Center
2930 Norman Strasse Rd STE 104, San Marcos, CA 92069
- Mon — Fri9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
- Saturday10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
No appointment needed
Get DirectionsMiramar Drop-Off Location
9434 Kearny Mesa Rd, San Diego, CA 92126
- Weekdays9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Weekends10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
No appointment needed
Check in at the Associated Storage office
Get DirectionsKearny Mesa Drop-Off Location
5450 Kearny Mesa Rd, San Diego, CA 92111
- Weekdays9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Weekends10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
No appointment needed
Check in at the Associated Storage office
Get DirectionsOceanside Drop-Off Location
1501 S Coast Hwy, Oceanside, CA 92054
- Mon — Sat10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Sunday10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
No appointment needed
Check in at the Security Public Storage office
Get DirectionsMore than fits in a car? We pick up free anywhere in San Diego County for 5 or more computing devices. Call (619) 889-1305 or schedule a free pickup.
What San Diego Community Says About Us
Our Complete Computer Recycling Services
Computers and Electronics We Accept
If it has a cable, a plug, or a battery, we will almost certainly take it. Here is what falls under computer recycling specifically, all accepted free of charge.
Desktops, All-in-Ones and Towers
- Desktop towers and small-form-factor PCs from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, and custom builds
- All-in-one computers, including iMacs
- Mac Pro, Mac Mini, and Mac Studio
- Chromeboxes and thin clients
- Workstations and CAD machines
- Tablets and iPads
- Broken, water-damaged, and non-booting machines
Condition makes no difference to us.
Laptops and Notebooks
- Laptops and notebooks of every brand
- MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro
- Chromebooks and netbooks
- 2-in-1 and convertible machines
- Gaming and mobile workstation laptops
- Cracked screens, dead batteries, water damage
Lithium-ion batteries are removed and handled as universal waste, and soldered or M.2 SSDs get a different destruction method than spinning drives.
Monitors and Displays
- LCD, LED, and OLED monitors of any size
- Older CRT monitors
- Ultrawide and curved panels
- Touchscreens and digital signage
- Projectors
- Monitor arms and stands
CRT glass contains lead and LCD backlights contain mercury, which is exactly why neither can go in a dumpster.
TV & monitor recyclingComponents and Peripherals
- Motherboards, CPUs, RAM, GPUs, and power supplies
- Hard drives, SSDs, and optical drives
- Cooling fans, heatsinks, cases, and chassis
- Keyboards, mice, webcams, and headsets
- Docking stations, USB hubs, and speakers
- Printers, scanners, copiers, and shredders
- UPS units, chargers, adapters, and cables
Servers and Networking
- Rack and tower servers, blade chassis
- SAN and NAS storage arrays
- Tape libraries and LTO drives
- Server racks and cabinets
- Switches, routers, firewalls, and modems
- Wireless access points, patch panels, KVM switches, PDUs
- PBX and VoIP phone systems, structured cabling
Other Accepted Electronics
- Cell phones, smartwatches, and wearables
- Gaming consoles and controllers
- Cameras, drones, and e-readers
- POS terminals and card readers
- Smart-home devices and TVs
- Rechargeable batteries
- Small appliances with electronics
Batteries inside a device are fine. Loose damaged, swollen, or leaking batteries are not accepted.
See the full items we recycle listUnacceptable Items
Items We Cannot Accept
Prohibited Items
We take virtually all computer equipment, but a few things that turn up with it need a different handler:
- Loose damaged batteries: Swollen, punctured, or leaking. A battery still inside a laptop is fine and needs no special handling.
- Smoke detectors: These contain a radioactive source and fall outside our permits.
- Compressed canisters, paint, chemicals, and aerosols: anything liquid or pressurized.
A few items are accepted for a small handling fee at our Point Loma, Chula Vista, and San Marcos recycling centers, since our downstream processors charge us for them:
- Coax and fiber optic cable: $1 per pound
- CDs and VHS tapes: $1 per pound
Not sure about something? Call (619) 889-1305 before you load the car, or email photos to [email protected].
Our Process
How Computer Recycling Drop-Off Process Works
Back up anything you still want, then sign out of your accounts. You do not need to wipe the drive or remove it, that is our job and we will destroy it either way. You also don’t need to detach cables, remove RAM, or clean anything up. Boxing loose peripherals together speeds up the unload.
Drive to whichever of our six locations is closest and pull up to the receiving area. Our team unloads the vehicle. There is no appointment, no paperwork, and no charge. If you want a Certificate of Destruction or a recycling receipt, ask at the counter and we will issue it on the spot.
Your equipment is logged in and triaged. Working, current-generation hardware is set aside for testing and refurbishment. Everything else is disassembled by hand and by machine into separate material streams: steel, aluminum, copper, circuit boards, plastics, glass, and batteries.
Hard drives, SSDs, and any other storage media are pulled from the chassis and routed to our data destruction line, physically destroyed, and documented. Batteries are removed before shredding and handled as universal waste. Nothing data-bearing leaves our custody intact.
Receive a Certificate of Destruction on request to confirm that your computer has been responsibly and securely recycled.
computer RECYCLING
Is My Personal or Business Data Safe?
Here is what we do instead:
- Physical destruction by default. Drives from recycled computers are removed and physically destroyed, not reformatted and resold.
- Verified sanitization for reuse. When hardware is refurbished, drives are wiped using methods aligned with NIST SP 800-88 media sanitization guidelines and the result is verified before the machine moves on.
- Free Certificate of Destruction. Available on request for every customer, resident or business, listing what was destroyed and when.
- On-site destruction available. If your policy says data can’t leave the building, we bring the equipment to you and destroy drives in your parking lot while you watch.
- Documented chain of custody. Locked transport and logged handoffs from your door to destruction.
Why Choose Dream Electronic Recycling?
- R2v3 certified. Independently audited against the international standard for responsible electronics reuse and recycling.
- CalRecycle-registered collector, CEWID #127772. State-approved to handle covered electronic devices in California.
- Six San Diego County locations plus free countywide pickup, so you are not driving 40 minutes to recycle a monitor.
- Locally owned and operating since 2015. Not a franchise call center routing you to a third party.
- Free Certificate of Destruction for residents and businesses alike.
- Zero landfill commitment. Nothing we accept is dumped
- We take the hard stuff. CRTs, dead servers, water-damaged laptops, and 15-year-old towers nobody else wants.
San Diego
What Happens to My Computer After I Recycle It?
- Intake and chain of custody. Your equipment is weighed and logged on arrival. Business loads can be inventoried by asset tag or serial number so your records match ours.
- Data destruction first. Storage media is removed and destroyed before any material processing begins. That sequencing matters: it means a drive can’t slip through a shredder line intact and end up on a resale market.
- Reuse assessment. Hardware with remaining useful life is tested, wiped, and refurbished rather than destroyed. Reuse is a better environmental outcome than recycling, because it avoids manufacturing a replacement entirely.
- Manual and mechanical separation. What can’t be reused is dismantled. Batteries, capacitors, mercury lamps, and toner are removed as focus materials. The remaining chassis goes through shredding and separation into ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, circuit board, plastic, and glass fractions.
- Downstream material recovery. Each stream goes to a permitted downstream processor. Circuit boards go to smelters that recover gold, silver, copper, and palladium. Steel and aluminum return to mills. Plastics are pelletized into feedstock.
- Documentation. You receive a Certificate of Destruction and, for business accounts, a recycling report you can hand to auditors or your sustainability team.
Under R2v3, every downstream vendor in that chain has to be audited and documented, which is what separates a certified recycler from a scrap broker who exports containers overseas.
Who Can Use Our Computer Recycling Services
Full-Service Computer Liquidation and Data Destruction
Not every retired computer belongs in a shredder. Recent workstations, servers, and networking gear often carry real residual value, and destroying them writes off an asset you could have recovered against.
Our computer liquidation service evaluates your retired fleet, identifies what has remarketing value, sanitizes it to standard, and returns a share of the resale proceeds to you. Everything without value goes into the recycling stream at no cost. You get one vendor, one chain of custody, and one set of documentation covering both outcomes.
This is the right path if you are decommissioning a data center, closing an office, returning leased hardware, or running an annual refresh cycle on a fleet of 50 or more machines.
Computer Recycling Service Areas We Cover Throughout San Diego
We proudly serve homeowners and residents throughout San Diego County, including San Diego, Chula Vista, North County, San Marcos, Miramar, Kearny Mesa. Drop off your electronics at any of our convenient recycling locations, or schedule a residential e-waste pickup for larger quantities anywhere in San Diego County.
Find Computer Recycling Near You
Don't See Your Area Listed?
We provide computer recycling services and pickup throughout San Diego County.
Free Computer Recycling
What Is Computer Recycling?
Computer recycling service is the process of collecting end of life computers, separating them into recoverable material streams and destroying any data they still hold, so that nothing usable is wasted and nothing hazardous reaches a landfill. A single desktop contains steel, aluminum, copper, gold, palladium, and plastics worth recovering, alongside lead, mercury, cadmium, brominated flame retardants, and lithium that are genuinely dangerous once they leach into soil or groundwater.
In California, this is not optional. Under the Electronic Waste Recycling Act and the Department of Toxic Substances Control’s universal waste rules, computers, monitors, and laptops are classified as hazardous electronic waste and cannot legally go in household trash or a commercial dumpster. Businesses carry additional exposure: disposing of a machine with a readable hard drive can trigger liability under HIPAA, FACTA, GLBA, or California’s own privacy statutes, regardless of who threw it away.
Proper computer recycling closes both gaps at once. It keeps regulated material out of the waste stream, returns metals and plastics to manufacturing, and produces documentation proving the data on those machines no longer exists.
Computer Recycling
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Dream Electronic Recycling accepts computers free of charge at all six San Diego County locations, with no fee, no minimum quantity, and no appointment. Free pickup is also available for larger volumes. California’s Electronic Waste Recycling Act already funds the recycling of covered devices through a fee collected when the device was originally sold, which is why you don’t pay again at disposal.
At any of our six locations:
- San Diego (Point Loma) 4009 Hicock St STE D, San Diego, CA 92110. Mon to Sat: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
- Chula Vista 819 Anita St, Chula Vista, CA 91911. Mon to Fri: 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM
- San Marcos 2930 Norman Strasse Rd STE 104, San Marcos, CA 92069. Mon to Fri: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM, Sat: 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
- Miramar 9434 Kearny Mesa Rd, San Diego, CA 92126. Weekdays: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM, Weekends: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
- Kearny Mesa 5450 Kearny Mesa Rd, San Diego, CA 92111. Weekdays: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM, Weekends: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
- Oceanside 1501 S Coast Hwy, Oceanside, CA 92054. Mon to Sat: 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM, Sun: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
No. All six Dream Electronic Recycling locations accept walk-in drop-offs during business hours, though hours vary by location. Pull up to the receiving area and our team unloads for you. At our Point Loma, Chula Vista, North county, Miramar, Kearny Mesa, and Oceanside locations, check in at the storage office first. Appointments are only needed for on-site hard drive destruction or a scheduled business pickup.
All of them. Desktop towers, all-in-ones and iMacs, laptops and MacBooks, Chromebooks, tablets, thin clients, workstations, and rack or tower servers, in any brand and any condition. We also accept monitors, keyboards, mice, printers, cables, hard drives, and internal components such as motherboards, RAM, and power supplies.
Yes. Condition makes no difference to us and there is no charge either way. Cracked screens, water damage, dead motherboards, missing parts, machines that won’t power on, we accept all of it. Broken computers still contain recoverable copper, aluminum, and circuit board metals, and their drives still need destroying.
Yes, free of charge at every location. Laptops need two extra handling steps: the lithium-ion battery is removed and processed as universal waste, and solid state drives require a different destruction method than mechanical drives. See our free laptop recycling service in San Diego for the full process.
No. There is no per-visit cap and no minimum. Bring one machine or clear out an entire garage. If you have more than fits comfortably in a vehicle, call (619) 889-1305 and we will schedule a free pickup instead so you are not making multiple trips.
No. Leave the drive in the machine. Every computer we receive is treated as though it still holds data, and drives are removed and destroyed as part of our standard process. Do back up any files you want to keep and sign out of your accounts, because the data will not be recoverable afterward.
Drives are removed from the chassis and physically destroyed, so the platters or NAND cannot be read by any recovery method. Hardware being refurbished is instead wiped using verified sanitization methods aligned with NIST SP 800-88 and checked before reuse. A free Certificate of Destruction is available on request.
Not for typical residential equipment. Our service is free recycling rather than a buyback, so you pay nothing and receive nothing. Businesses retiring newer workstations or servers are different: through our IT equipment liquidation service we assess resale value and return a share of the proceeds instead of destroying a recoverable asset.
Yes. Under California’s Electronic Waste Recycling Act and DTSC universal waste rules, computers and monitors are classified as hazardous electronic waste and cannot go in household trash or a commercial dumpster. Businesses face additional exposure if a discarded machine still holds readable data. Read more about California e-waste law.
Yes. Business computer recycling is one of our core services, covering office refreshes, relocations, closures, lease returns, and data center decommissions. We provide free scheduled pickups, serial-level inventory reporting on request, on-site drive destruction, and compliance documentation. Call (619) 889-1305 or submit the form for a quote.
Yes. If your retired equipment still holds resale value, we assess it, sanitize it, and remarket it, returning a share of the proceeds to you rather than destroying a recoverable asset. Equipment without value is recycled at no cost. See our IT equipment liquidation service.