Around here if something comes in and the person is asked recycle/refurbish/reuse/etc the following happens:Recycle only - NO TOUCHING. Straight onto a pallet.(or into a pile awaiting a pallet)
Anything else - Can touch. But the reality is that despite something being "good" it is almost all stock & low end and there is limited space for inventory. You cannot hold everything in the hopes that one person will come around, who knows what that part/computer is and where to find drivers/OS; only buying a few things every couple months.
So setup on ebay you say? That is a pretty big effort and requires extra staff and a TON of time, materials, etc.
And if you are going to sell anything you kinda need to test it first. This requires having lots of other (proprietary or obscure)components on hand taking up even more space and time. This person/people also need to know wth they are doing too. Selling something as-is can easily result in annoyed customers who then say "how hard is it to test ____? morons." Or people who have no idea what they are getting into when they buy something old/obscure. You cannot provide any tech support either. If you did you would need more staff with more training etc.
All with the hope that some single person every few months *might* drop buy and *might* buy a couple things.
Around here, we send them to a smelter in this province.. so we are fairly certain that things are handled properly.