Recycle A Device (RAD) gets laptops to where they’re needed most while developing the tech engineering skills of rangatahi and reducing e-waste. Having a laptop is critical to accessing education, services and participate in daily life, and RAD does this by encouraging kaitiakitanga. RAD sources unwanted laptops and diverts them from e-recycling and landfill, rangatahi refurbish them, and then these fit-for-purpose laptops are gifted to whānau who need them most.

Established as a community led initiative, RAD was set up by a group of passionate leaders in digital equity: Digital Future Aotearoa, Spark Foundation, Remojo Tech and The Southern Initiative.

We also have a Fan Club full of supporters of the RAD mahi: Pam Fergusson Charitable Trust, Entelar, and Share My Super. We are so grateful for the support of all our donors and everyone in the RAD ecosystem.

When we heard about a student-led initiative out of Aotea College in Porirua, where some tech-savvy students were refurbishing laptops to make sure their peers had devices to use for school, we knew this model could be expanded to help even more people. RAD was formed using this initiative as the foundation, running pilot projects in 2020 to strengthen and further develop our processes in order to scale to a nationwide programme in 2021.

The students who founded the Aotea College initiative, Owyn and Hadi, have been involved in RAD since the beginning and this continues today, through their company Remojo Tech and their involvement with the RAD kaitiaki. Remojo Tech holds the responsibility for providing the training to schools, as well as being involved in both an operations and governance role.

Check out our impact reports for 2023, 2022 and 2021

Laptops which are less than ten years old and come with a charger.

Tablets - we started a tablet pilot in late 2021, which is currently on hold. We will update this page and our social media if we start accepting tablets into the programme again.

Fill out the form here, email the RAD team at team@recycleadevice.nz or call 02040196510 and let them know what you have to donate. The RAD team can give you details on how to get your devices to our data security partner to be wiped before being passed on to schools for refurbishment.

Devices given to RAD are donated to people within the community who have been identified as needing them. We are not a repair business so we cannot repair a device and return it to its owner, although there are plenty of laptop and tablet repair businesses in Aotearoa who will be able to help you with this!

We partner with Entelar, who securely wipe your laptop to a high standard so your information is removed before it goes to a high school for refurbishment. Entelar provides each donor with a certificate confirming their device has been wiped.

Businesses or individuals may prefer to wipe their laptops themselves before they donate them to RAD, which is something we are happy to accommodate.

We ask for members of the community and businesses to donate their used laptops to RAD. We are able to refurbish almost any laptop that is less than ten years old and comes with a charger. At the moment we don’t accept devices such as phones, tablets, Chromebooks, printers, desktop computers, or anything other than laptops.

If you don’t have any devices to get rid of, you can still support RAD! Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and share our posts with your friends and family - you never know who has a laptop lurking in the cupboard or a direct line to a potentially big corporate donor. RAD is a not-for-profit organisation that relies on donations and other fundraising efforts to continue getting laptops to students who need them and making education and technology accessible to kiwis. If you want to help RAD but don’t have a laptop to give, you can donate towards our operations costs, or let us know of any funding initiatives you think might work for us!

Yes! We’re looking for schools to establish and run a RAD refurbishment programme. This works best run as an extra-curricular activity with some passionate students and a teacher to give direction and oversight. RAD will run a one-day workshop with students where they’ll learn all they need to know to have a good foundation of knowledge to run the programme, and we also cover the costs of spare parts.

Schools are able to keep up to half of the devices they refurbish to distribute in their own community, and we distribute the rest to community groups who are able to identify and support people in need.

We’d love to talk to you more about the details here, please email team@recycleadevice.nz

At the moment Remojo Tech are training students working to refurbish devices for RAD, this allows the students to be taught by their peers and aligns with the vision of the community-driven, student focused initiative that Owyn and Hadi founded. But, if you have skills or contacts that you think would benefit RAD, please get in touch, or consider volunteering at a Code Club.

We work with community groups who are able to identify and support individuals and whānau in need. These community groups act as a layer of trust, providing training, support and ensuring the recipients have a happy journey with their laptop. If your community group would like to distribute RAD laptops, please reach out to us by email team@recycleadevice.nz and we can work through the details.

Many of the recipients of our refurbished laptops also don’t have a reliable internet connection. We partner with the Spark Foundation, Skinny Jump and our community groups to ensure the recipients are able to fully participate in the digital world.

RAD is a nationwide initiative, we work with refurbishment and community groups all over the country and we accept donations from anywhere in New Zealand. We ask for donations to be dropped off to our locations in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin or Queenstown (please email us for further details) or sent to our data security partner in Auckland to be wiped before being distributed to schools to be refurbished.

Even when factoring in any costs involved in dropping off to a collection point or sending your device to Auckland, it is still almost always cheaper than travelling to an e-recycling centre and paying for the laptop to be e-wasted - plus you can be sure with RAD it will go to a good home and help someone, rather than being sold for profit or ending up as waste.

We are always looking for people to start local collection hubs to get a lot of devices together and then send/drop them all off in bulk. If you are keen to start a collection hub, get in touch!

RAD is a not-for-profit initiative. This means we don’t sell anything and we don’t charge our donors or our recipients. We rely on donations and funding from trusts, grants and other charitable organisations to cover our costs.

New Chromebooks start at $375, and Windows laptops at $700, RAD’s refurbished devices cost $200 and our process has the added benefit of ensuring the recipients also receive access to the internet and digital literacy skills if they need them, as well as knowing whether whānau need more than one device in their household. The $200 it costs RAD to get a laptop to someone in need includes the positive impacts of developing the technical engineering skills of rangatahi and diverting e-waste from landfill.

RAD focuses on benefiting the community in multiple ways; diverting e-waste from landfill, providing training to rangatahi in refurbishing devices (introducing them to the possibility of a career in STEM and tech but also allowing them to gain project management, responsibility, teamwork, problem solving and other skills that have benefits outside of school and laptops), and providing devices to those in the community who need them. Without refurbishing devices, we reduce the amount of good we do in the community.

We frequently hear stories of rangatahi who are unable to participate in classes because of BYOD policies, which exclude those without a device. It is also too common for ākonga to be trying to write an essay on a cellphone or shared device. Participation in study, work and everyday life shouldn’t be dependent on having a new device if a secondhand device is fit for purpose. The tamariki and rangatahi receiving RAD laptops just want the chance to participate, they don’t mind how it happens.

RAD makes sure each device gifted into the community is fit for purpose - in good physical condition, with software installed that will ease the recipients use of the device. We match the device given to the need of the recipient - if someone is starting a graphic design course and needs a laptop, we won’t provide them with a device that isn’t high spec, just as we wouldn’t give a hi-end MacBook to a student in primary school who just needs a basic device to participate in BYOD. If at any point the device becomes no longer fit for purpose, we encourage community members to send it back to RAD for us to fix or retire, and we will provide a replacement.

Second hand devices are readily available and otherwise will go to landfill, be stripped for e-recycling or be refurbished for profit. Since the beginning of 2020, with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been significant supply chain issues which reduce the availability of new devices - we have talked to several large corporates who are not able to purchase a bulk supply of devices, even when they are willing to pay a premium.

RAD aims to bridge the digital divide by giving hardware and skills access to rangatahi. By 2024, we wish to have gifted 17,000 laptops to whānau in Aotearoa.

RAD has three key outcomes:

Get fit for purpose laptops into the hands of those who need them most

Develop the tech engineering and STEM skills of high school students

Divert e-waste from landfill - reducing toxic runoff to land and water, and extending the lifespan of devices to avoid the creation of new ones

RAD was established during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, when it became obvious that the difference in learning outcomes between students who had a laptop and could participate in online study and those who did not was crystal clear and alarming.

The digital divide in New Zealand is significant and affects the prosperity of so many people. This divide was highlighted during COVID-19 when those without devices simply couldn’t attend school and work, do their banking, apply for jobs and so many more daily tasks that take place online.

Refurbished Chromebooks cost upwards of $300 each, and it’s more than $500 for a Windows OS refurbished device. RAD’s cost per device is less than $200, and the process teaches high school students skills that create pathway to a career in STEM. They learn skills in project management, social responsibility, computer operations, optimisation and diagnostics.