I have a banana box in the office cupboard.  It also contains a DVD player, and two Freeview boxes.

These guys in Onehunga, Auckland take anything I give them & at $5 a monitor, it's the best deal in town to get rid of old unwanted electronics:

http://upcycle.co.nz/

Old tech I tend to give away to friends, strip for parts, e-waste, or as a last resort throw out. It partly depends on how much I have - I'm not going to drive all the way to an e-cycler or suchlike for one small item or a couple of cables, I would for a CRT or a decent quantity of stuff.

Cables, unless they are proprietary and I know I will never use them, I don't tend to part with. They get tossed into my large "box-o-bits" in the garage. My wife used to complain about "the box of junk". Until twice recently (broken cord on her laptop charger, something else I can't remember) she was saved my me just going the out to the box and instantly producing what she needed. Now she doesn't.

I find that sistema containers are better to store these things in as you can see what is in them and they stack well.

Noel Leeming accept e-waste including cables for free at participating stores on behalf of Tech Collect NZ.  At a glance doesn't appear to include Whanganui sorry but maybe if you're traveling to an adjacent region's store?

https://www.noelleeming.co.nz/services-ewaste

Put it in a box and store in your attic. When you move house in 10 years don't forget to take that box with you, just in case.

Groucho:

 

Noel Leeming accept e-waste including cables for free at participating stores on behalf of Tech Collect NZ.  At a glance doesn't appear to include Whanganui sorry but maybe if you're traveling to an adjacent region's store?

 

https://www.noelleeming.co.nz/services-ewaste

 

I've used this several times in Whangarei - including dropping off smashed monitors, unwanted old server PCs, and the like. Highly recommended.

In chch it appears some crack beads are nicking the power lines (many still live)

I’m sure if you FB market place “free” then someone will take it…

gnfb:

I bet I am like a lot of us with several boxes of old cables and tech. I recently discovered that the goodwill shops are not really interested in taking it, and some have a flat out "No Thanks" policy. I tried listing a bunch of cables $1 reserve but little success. So I am after suggestions.

I have stopped most pick ups these days and I dont use Facebook Market anymore, but if there are any local Whanganui geekzone members who want some boxes of cables gratis DM me

SirHumphreyAppleby:

 

I solved this problem by getting a bigger box.

 

LOL same with me, you never know when you going to need this stuff again in some future hobby project - But I guess that's what horders would say too. 

Thanks to all for suggestions I know have a solution

When I was in Wgtn I used to dump old cables into a neighbouring sparky's "scrap cable for beer" woolsack. When I wanted some Cat5 he gave me some boxes with only about 30-40m in them that were heading for same sack.

Rule number 1: never throw anything out. If your partner throws something out, you’ll have to go buy a replacement. My strategy is to collect mountains of shoeboxes to store my precious cable collection and label the boxes well. 

But on the other hand, I did recently get rid of my 20 MB hard drive which weighed about 5 kg with a giant parallel cable that connected to no computer sold within the last 30 years 😁. And a bunch of old SCART cables…

gnfb:

 

I bet I am like a lot of us with several boxes of old cables and tech. I recently discovered that the goodwill shops are not really interested in taking it, and some have a flat out "No Thanks" policy. I tried listing a bunch of cables $1 reserve but little success. So I am after suggestions.

 

I have stopped most pick ups these days and I dont use Facebook Market anymore, but if there are any local Whanganui geekzone members who want some boxes of cables gratis DM me

 

Technoman in Whanganui East takes old tech (including cables) and recycles it (for free). It’s part of the TechCollect network mentioned above.