How – and Why – To Recycle Your Old Electronics

All recovered from the Super Bowl? If you are a Giants' fan, congratulations! If you're a Patriots fan, sorry. If you're a commercials fan – what was your favorite? Personally, I enjoyed the Ferris Bueller Honda ad, especially the long YouTube version, and "The Dog Strikes Back" Volkswagen spot (although I could have done without the Star Wars cantina coda).

But I digress.

If you took my advice from last week ("Super Bowl Week: Best Time to Buy a TV"), you watched the game and the ads on a brand new HDTV. Which could mean you've now got an old TV sitting in your garage. It may be joining other old, obsolete or broken gear. In the last month, both of my printers died and are now sitting on my kitchen floor waiting to be disposed of.

Your old TV isn't alone. For 2009 (the last year for which statistics are available), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates 27.2 million TVs were ready for disposal, but only 4.6 million of them got collected for recycling. In addition, 2.37 million tons of electronics was ready for the trash heap, but only a quarter were collected for recycling.

That's not good.

Don't be a recycling cynic

Even if you're cynical about recycling to help preserve scarce materials, tossing electronics in the garbage is just plain stupid.

You see, inside that case are all manner of toxic materials – lead, cadmium, arsenic (really) and mercury, to name a few. In a landfill, these toxic materials seep into the ground water – the water you drink and bathe in.

In other words, the TV you toss in the trash today you could be drinking tomorrow.

Plus, many gadgets include memory that could contain sensitive information – and not just old PCs. Smartphones and printers also have long memories. Even if the device doesn't work, anyone who's watched CSI knows information can still be extracted from the memory of otherwise non-working devices.

Finally, companies unable to recycle returned electronics send them overseas, where less care is taken in their disposal, a practice to which the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is attempting to convince the EPA to pay a bit more attention.

You want these poisonous gadgets properly ground up into pixie dust, not available to dumpster divers or other unscrupulous scavengers.

Who/where to recycle

Obviously, if your gadget still works – particular old TVs and cell/smart phones, you should try to find it a good home. You could try selling your still working TV, for instance, but you'd be better served by moving it to another room or gifting it to a relative or even to a charity.

If your device is still working and in decent shape, Best Buy will let you trade it in when you buy a replacement from them. Similarly, the company will haul away your old TV or appliance when it delivers a new one to you.

Additionally, according to Steve Skurnac, president of Sims Recycling Solutions America, the world's largest electronics recycling company, many charity organizations will take your old working electronics to try and make a little money for themselves while providing you with a tax deduction. (Steve and Sims provided the idea and some resources for this post.)

Donation Town acts as a clearing house for charities who'll pick up your old stuff, electronics or otherwise. Just input your Zip Code and you'll get a list of local charities who will pick up your still working but discarded gadgets.

For broken gadgets, most municipalities schedule e-waste pick up days – just do a Google search for e-waste and the name of your town to discover the particulars. Other cities offer specifically-timed e-waste "events," specific days and times for you to drop off your e-waste. You can find a list of these local e-waste recycling events on Sims' site here (ignore the "2011 Calendar" heading – all the events are current).

In addition to local pick-up and drop-off, you may find a local for-profit recycling company. In New York City, for instance, you can contact 4th Bin, who will pick up your old gear on your schedule, although they will charge you for it.

Not all recycling operations are created equal, however. A widely-respected outfit called e-Stewards certifies recycling plants. You can find one of the nearly 100 local e-Stewards certified recycling centers near you on its Web site.

Keeping an eye on the whole electronics recycling effort is the non-profit Electronics TakeBack Coalition, which offers multiple e-waste recycling options and resources.

Cell/smart phone recycling

Perhaps the most vexing e-waste problem are cell and smart phones, which we tend to replace every couple years, way before they die.

You can bequeath phones from AT&T and T-Mobile phones to family members or friends since it's easy to swap out the SIM card. Verizon and Sprint phones aren't as easy to pass on.

Here are three other cell/smart phone recycling options:

• Cell Phones For Soldiers will send your "gently used" phone to deploying or returning troops.
• More than 4,000 charitable organizations are part of American Cell Phone Drive, which coordinates donations of phones for local re-use or recycling.
• You can mail your ready-to-be-recycled phone to Earthworks, which partners with e-Stewards, to get a receipt for a tax-deductible donation.

In short, you now have no excuse for dumping your device into a dumpster.