The Salvation Army here no longer accept ANY electronics or electrical appliances here. In part due to the costs associated with dumping all the dead stuff and in part due to some stupid OH&S requirements. They used to get some interesting stuff and occasionally the guys on the floor would tell me where to go to get stuff that they had left behind. Now they only time I get stuff from there is when I pick up "donations" that are dumped in the parking lot.
The Savers chain accept some stuff and have it tested to comply with the OH&S rules, but they never seem to have anything good. That said even before the changes came in I never found any good audio/TV stuff at savers. They used to be good for vintage computers and video games though, I got both my Amiga 1200 tower and Amiga 4000 there among other things.
There is still a supposedly charity run resale shop at a local dump, but what is actually accepted and put out for sale varies depending on exactly who is on. I've been there on days when better stuff is crushed in the scrap bin than is out on the shelves. They cut all the leads in their effort to comply with the OH&S rules (which can be a real pain when you have to patch or replace the multipin cables connecting 2 halves of an organ).
Unfortunately cutting leads is becoming more and more common. I've seen notices for curbside garbage collection state that all leads must be cut. I'm seeing more and more stuff with badly patched leads (wires twisted together and taped, active/neutral swapped, even active/earth swapped!) show up.
Surely someone is more likely to get electrocuted this way than if they simply plug in the TV/stereo/whatever they find as is.
If the OH&S nutjobs get there way you won't even be able to buy a mains plug (with the new style flimsy easily bent insulated pins as they can't sell the older type anymore) without an electrical contractors license. Will they be asking me to hand in my soldering iron next as I don't have the proper permit?
