Out with the old: What to do with your unwanted tech gear

Here’s the good news: You’ve gotten nice new shiny toys this holiday season — a new PC, monitor, iPod, gaming system, printer, cell phone or some other kind of geek gadget.

Here’s the bad news: You’ve now got useless old electronics gear lying around, and you’d prefer that it not sit in your basement, attic or back room for the next several decades.

What to do? You might be tempted to throw it out with the trash. But resist that temptation. Electronics equipment is notoriously dangerous and environmentally unfriendly. It frequently contains hazardous chemicals and heavy metals, including cadmium, lead and mercury. If electronics are simply thrown away, these toxins frequently end up in our water and soil. In addition, depending on where you live, it may be illegal to simply throw them in the trash.

It’s easy, though, to get rid of old electronics. No matter where you live, you can sell it, donate it or recycle it. Not only will you be doing the earth some good, you may be able to line your pockets with a little bit of spending money, or help a good cause. In this article, I’ll show you how to do it.

By the way, before you recycle your PC or cell phone, make sure to completely remove all your personal data. For details, see our sidebar on wiping your data.

Get cash for your trash

It’s easier than you think to sell your used electronics. A good place to start, naturally, is at the world’s biggest garage sale, eBay. If your equipment is usable at all, there’s a good chance you’ll find a buyer on eBay.

(Note that if you haven’t sold anything on eBay before, you’ll have to register first. As a first-time seller, people may be leery of buying from you, so selling a big-ticket item can be a problem. Selling via Craigslist might be easier.)

Make sure to do your homework before selling — search eBay to see what similar goods are selling for. When you create your auction, it’s a good idea to include a photo, because that’s more likely to lead to a sale. So use your digital camera, or cell phone if it’s got a built-in camera, to snap a picture.

Also, before selling, find out how much it’s going to cost you to ship the goods, either by asking at your local post office or by using the U.S. Postal Service’s handy dandy online postage calculator. Then, when you create the auction, make sure you fill out the auction form correctly to say that the buyer pays for shipping, and include the shipping price.

One word of warning here: Beware of scammers, especially if you’re selling a cell phone. For some reason (perhaps because they’re easy to resell), cell phones seem to attract scammers more than other types of products, at least in my experience. I’ve sold a number of things on eBay, and never had a problem with scammers until I tried to sell a cell phone. On the first auction, the high bidder was a classic Nigerian scam artist who wanted me to ship the phone before he would pay. I ignored him, put the phone up for auction again, and the same thing happened again. I ended up contacting someone who wasn’t the high bidder, offered it to them for their bid price and sold it that way.

Regardless, no matter what you’re selling, don’t ship the product until the payment to you clears. And for safety’s sake, consider putting in your auction that you won’t ship outside your home country.

If you’d rather not deal with packing up and shipping your electronics, consider selling them on Craigslist, a more traditional classified ads site, and specify that the buyer has to pick up the goods. As with eBay, including photos helps drive sales on craigslist.

There’s an even simpler way to sell your used electronics if you don’t want to go through the hassle of running an auction on eBay or selling on Craigslist. You can instead sell them directly to any one of several Web sites — and the selling process is painless.

Second Rotation is a great place to go to sell a wide array of noncomputer electronics. For example, they’ll buy cell phones from 37 different manufacturers; gaming consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony; and digital cameras, MP3 players, camcorders and GPS devices from dozens of manufacturers.

Choose what you want to sell, fill out a simple form detailing its condition and click a button to accept the site’s offer. Fill out a shipping form, and the site creates a printable shipping label via DHL (shipping is free). You get to choose whether you want to be paid via check or PayPal; then just wait for DHL to arrive, and for your money to make its way to you.

When there’s no resale value on what you’ve got, you can recycle the equipment through the site. As with the sales process, it will print out a shipping label. Call DHL, and they’ll pick it up. SecondRotation will then recycle your equipment.

A similar site, BuyMyTronics buys used iPods, iPhones and game consoles. It works much the same as SecondRotation: Describe the condition of what you’re selling, the site tells you what it will pay you, you send it on its merry way, and a check or a PayPal payment makes its way to you. Similarly, US Recycling buys cell phones and printer cartridges, which are then recycled.

Donate your goods

If you have usable equipment, there’s another choice for you: You can donate it. That way, you’ll be helping others, as well as ensuring you don’t harm the environment. Newer computers and monitors, of course, are easier to donate than older equipment. In general, the older electronics are, the less chance there is that someone will want them.

First, contact local charities, to see if they have any formal programs for accepting electronics. If not, they still might need what you have, so ask to be put in touch with whoever is in charge of technology or the IT department.

Goodwill Industries is a particularly good choice because of a unique program that includes job training. When you donate your computer to a Goodwill center that participates in the program, the organization examines the computer to see whether it has any value if refurbished. If it’s not worth refurbishing, Goodwill recycles the computer in a partnership with Dell. (The computers don’t have to be Dell models.)

If it is worth refurbishing, the computer is given to a job training program that teaches people computer-related skills that they can use in the workplace. Trainees refurbish the computers, which are then sold at Goodwill stores. So Goodwill gets money, those in need of help receive job training, and you get rid of a PC and have done some good in the world as well.

Not all Goodwills participate in the program, and the program runs differently at each Goodwill agency. In the San Francisco area, for example, the local Goodwill has a partnership with the tech firm ReliaTech. Goodwill gives the computers to ReliaTech, which runs a job training program that teaches people to refurbish PCs. Goodwill then sells the refurbished PCs, which carry a free 90-day warranty. All you need to do is bring your PC to any Goodwill store in the San Francisco area.

Goodwill also accepts many other kinds of electronics. Gaming systems are particularly welcome, because they sell easily. And Goodwill also accepts cell phones, which they then sell to cell phone recyclers. It’s best to check with your local Goodwill before bringing in any electronics equipment, however, because not all participate in these types of programs.

There are quite a few Web sites that let you donate electronics for a good cause as well. For example, the Wireless Foundation runs the Call to Protect program in which donated cell phones help survivors of domestic violence. In some cases, the cell phones are refurbished and given to domestic violence survivors so that they can quickly dial 911 if they are threatened in any way. In other cases, the cell phones are sold, and the proceeds are given to agencies that fight domestic violence or provide shelter for victims of domestic violence.

Similarly, the group Recycle for Breast Cancer accepts a wide variety of electronics goods, including PCs, cell phones and pagers, ink cartridges, printers and their components, handhelds, digital cameras, routers, phones, MP3 players and more. They then sell them to recyclers and donate the money to help fight breast cancer. You’ll be sent a shipping label so that you can ship the electronics to them for free.

Recycle that junk

Selling or donating your electronics is always preferable to recycling, not least because it’s not always clear what happens to electronics slated for recycling. A 2005 study by Greenpeace International found that much of the electronics waste collected for recycling in the U.S. ends up overseas, particularly in India and China, where it pollutes their local environment instead of ours.

Still, if you can’t sell or donate your electronics, recycling is your best alternative. But before you choose a recycler, do some investigating to be sure it’s on the up and up. The Electronic Industries Alliance has a comprehensive list of questions for recyclers that will help you determine if your devices will be handled properly.

Now that you know what to ask, where do you go?

A good place to start is with your local town or city. Many have electronics recycling programs, where you can either drop off the electronics or else leave them curbside. In some instances — if you have a large monitor, for example — you may have to purchase a special sticker for $10 to $20 to have it picked up.

Many electronics stores have special recycling programs, where you can drop off your old electronics and have them recycled. In some instances, proceeds from the cash they get from recycling are donated to good causes.

For example, Staples stores have a joint program with the Sierra Club called CollectiveGood in which Staples stores accept used cell phones, then donates a portion of the money gained from recycling to the Sierra Club. If you don’t live near a Staples, you can get a free postal service mailing label online. You can also bring computers, monitors, laptops, printers and similar equipment to any Staples store and drop it off to be recycled. If it’s a large piece of equipment, you might have to pay a $10 fee to have it recycled. Staples also accepts toner cartridges.

Many electronics manufacturers will recycle their used equipment for free — and they sometimes take electronic goods from other manufacturers as well. For example, Dell will take back any Dell product for free. You fill out a form, get a shipping label and send the goods on their way. In addition, if you buy a new Dell computer, Dell will take back your old PC and monitor for free, no matter the brand.

Similarly, Apple will recycle an old computer from any manufacturer for free when you buy a new Apple computer. With Hewlett-Packard‘s recycling program, you can recycle printers, scanners, fax machines, computers, monitors and handheld devices from any manufacturer, not just HP. But you’ll have to pay from $13 to $34 to do it.

If you’ve got a smaller device, Apple will recycle any iPod or cell phone for free. And Nokia will also take back cell phones from any manufacturer.

Finally, for an excellent site that has plenty of information and links about recycling old electronics, go to eBay’s Rethink Initiative site. Particularly useful are the links to manufacturer sites and various organizations that recycle electronics.

There. With your back room absent of electronics junk and your conscience clear, you can get back to playing with your shiny new toys.