There is lots of recycling and second hand in the united states. I can find a lot of toasters, very few computer parts. If I were to offer my old tech parts, I would get very few people who even knew what they were. In a bigger area like Boston, you can have a healthy exchange, but not in 50,000-people-ville, USA.
I think what you are lamenting is population density in the US vs EU.
You have a point. There are a couple million people in Ireland and one working Tektronix 4014 terminal. I would expect to be a hundred of them in the US, which doesn't seem that far off ;-)
We should have more DEC terminals though. We had a factory in Galway.
That makes me a very sad retro geek.