Technicians in India’s refurbished laptop shops give discarded electronics a new life.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.07-144241/https://www.theverge.com/tech/639126/india-frankenstein-laptops

In a dimly lit, cluttered workshop in Delhi’s Nehru Place, the air hums with the sound of whirring drills and the crackle of soldering irons. Sushil Prasad, a 35-year-old technician, wipes the sweat off his brow as he carefully pieces together the guts of an old laptop. It is a daily ritual — resurrecting machines by stitching together motherboards, screens, and batteries scavenged from other trashed older laptops and e-waste — to create functional, low-cost devices.

“India has always had a repair culture … but companies are pushing planned obsolescence”

“Right now, there is a huge demand for such ‘hybrid’ laptops,” Prasad says, his hands swapping out a damaged motherboard. “Most people don’t care about having the latest model; they just want something that works and won’t break the bank.”

  • Redfox8@mander.xyz
    18·
    9 days ago

    So they’re recycling…good on them…but there I was thinking they may be creating some Apple-PC steam punk mutant for some specialist market…

    • misk@sopuli.xyzOP
      8·
      9 days ago

      Hackintoshes will be over soon unfortunately. A pity since that’s how I originally entered Apple ecosystem. ThinkPads with MacOS are bees knees.

  • jarfil@beehaw.org
    12·
    9 days ago

    Farooq Ahmed, an 18-year-old scrap dealer

    Without proper safety measures, workers handle toxic materials such as lead, mercury, and cadmium daily. “I cough a lot,” Ahmed admits with a sheepish grin. “But what can I do? This work feeds my family.”

    Food for today, death for tomorrow.

    On one hand, it’s criminal what companies like Apple do to hinder repairability. On the other, these people are killing themselves pretty quickly; instead of in a landfill, all those heavy metals are going to end up in the air after they get cremated.

    • amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1·
      6 days ago

      they aren’t killing themselves, the system of exploitation is. please stop shifting the blame to some of the poorest people on earth who can choose between shitty jobs like this and starving

      • jarfil@beehaw.org
        1·
        4 days ago

        Alternatively: nobody can actually force anyone to do anything, as in moving their arms and body for them, everyone chooses whether to starve, work at a suicide job, or rebel. Shifting blame for someone’s actions, or inaction, to an abstract “system”, is an easy excuse to justify people’s inaction regarding said system.