Recycling old computers

I left my monitor on the street on Sunday night and it was gone in less than an hour.

I had sold my PC and nobody wanted my big monitor. I tried really hard to find a recycling organization and came up empty

1. Place items on street near curb, optionally with a sign saying "free to take."

2. If they aren't gone in 3 hours, place an ad on Craigslist saying "free XYZ".

Never failed to work for me, but if something is obviously broken, you're going to need to find a tech recycling program. Certain electronics stores have them. Check out the following from Staples:
http://www.staples.com/sbd/content/about/recycle/technology.html

Also, the Department of Sanitation can do bulky item pick-up, but I'm not sure what their policy is on old tech stuff. The link on nyc.gov took me to http://nyc.gov/html/dsny/html/collection/refuse.shtml.

all of the above, plus the city dept of sanitation does periodic collection days of 'puters at the 16th St traffic circle -- clothes drop, computers, etc.

I think the 3R store on Fifth Ave near Bonnie's accepts drop offs of such things for recycling, but I'd call them first.
http://www.3rliving.com/category_s/16.htm

Our In-Store Recycling Center accepts:
Batteries, Cell phones, Ink cartridges, CDs and their cases, Hand-held electronics, and Crayons.

there's programs to delete stuff from the hard drive - there's a mac one called "martini" (or am I getting the cocktail wrong...?)

I like to record video (or space-hogging equiv) to write over the hard drive space a couple of times. I hope that's doing more than making me feel better . . .

or if it's about recycle (not reuse), smash the board