Secure your hard drive Before you donate / dispose electronics

Eventually your $500 computer will go kaput; your $200 copier/ printer will do the same.

The green / politically green / politically correct / verdantally correct thing to do is to recycle your electronics.
DON'T PUT THEM IN THE SIDEWALK FOR TRASH. THERE ARE SENSITIVE METALS IN THERE!!!
A N D ! ! ! :
DON'T PUT THEM ON THE SIDEWALK WITH THE GARBAGE, SINCE IDENTITY THIEVES CAN EXPLOIT YOUR HARD DRIVE (which is on any printer, as well).

From the New York City government website on proper disposal ... the following is for SECURE disposal:

BEFORE I RECYCLE OR DONATE MY COMPUTER, HOW CAN I SAFEGUARD MY PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Before disposing, recycling, or donating your computer, it is a good idea to remove all personal information from your hard drive to protect yourself from identity theft. At past DSNY e-waste events, our electronics recycling vendor was required to follow a Department of Defense standard to wipe everything from the hard drive three times to ensure that all data is fully erased. Other programs may have different requirements. Contact programs individually to inquire about their data destruction techniques.

Data wiping software is also available to help you erase your hard drive prior to recycling it. Another option is to remove the hard drive before recycling your computer. This way, you can still recycle the computer without having concerns about the data on the drive.

The problem for printers is that there are hard drives for data, and these are not as easy to clean data from as they are for computers. So REMOVE them.