Where to Recycle Digital Gear

After you've unwrapped and fired up that new electronic gadget, you have to figure out what to do with the device it replaces. Before you shelve that old phone or notebook alongside your 8-track and Betamax, you might consider properly recycling it instead. It's not tough to protect the environment, help a charity, and possibly get a rebate (or at least a tax write-off).

Returning used PC and communications equipment for reuse gives others the opportunity to gain access to technology. It also helps prevent what the Environmental Protection Agency estimates at about 2 million tons of electronic trash per year from being dumped into U.S. landfills.

Personal efforts are the key. Massachusetts is the only state to ban disposal of certain electronics in its landfills. In September, California governor Gray Davis vetoed a bill that would have made the state the first to assess a $10 recycling fee per electronic product to address the environmental impacts of disposal.

Take Inventory

A quick inventory of your electronic assets will help you devise a simple disposal strategy. If you have a new PC and simply want to change systems, you need to make the transition first. Tools are available to help you move your settings and applications onto the new system before discarding the old one.

You can also "recycle" the hard drive from your existing PC by installing it in the new one and using it as a second drive, says Steve Taylor, who runs a one-person consulting business in Greensboro, North Carolina, and can't resist frequently picking up the latest and greatest gear.

"Then, when you dispose of the old PC, you don't have privacy worries, such as someone finding your old e-mail," he notes.

If no family members are clamoring for your electronic hand-me-downs, a number of programs will accept them. The faster you relinquish your used PCs, PDAs, peripherals, and mobile phones, the greater the benefit to the people who inherit them. Year-old technology that seems archaic to you is current enough for most folks who receive refurbished equipment.

Where to Turn

Check with your company's facilities department; many have their own recycling programs. Also, most electronics manufacturers have trade-in programs. PC makers Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM, for example, all have mail-back programs (Gateway gives you a rebate).

Panasonic, Sharp, and Sony sponsor recycling events. You drop off equipment at a temporary collection site, and these manufacturers will pay to have it recycled.

Third-party organizations such as United Recycling Industries will recycle equipment made by any mix of vendors. You purchase a prepaid shipping label ($27.99 includes delivery and all recycling costs for shipments up to 69 pounds), box up your equipment, and drop your package off at any UPS pickup location.

Californians can leave PCs, peripherals, TVs, printers, copiers, and other devices at Computer Recycling Center locations throughout the state and get a tax credit. The organization refurbishes PCs and donates them to public schools, teachers, and community nonprofit organizations.

Calling All Cell Phones

Among the easiest items to safely discard are mobile phones, which leak lead, cadmium, and mercury into groundwater and the atmosphere if dumped into the trash. AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Sprint PCS, Verizon Wireless, and other mobile-equipment stores--including RadioShack and Target--have recycling bins where you can pitch your defunct phones. (Be sure to deactivate your service first!)

"You can return any model of phone at any store," notes Eric Forster, a vice president at ReCellular in Ann Arbor, Michigan. ReCellular partners with about 600 organizations to collect used mobile phones, refurbish them, and return them to wireless carriers, which resell them or donate them to charity.

"Even old analog phones are worth turning in," Forster says. "They can be reused by residents of shelters and for inner-city, prepaid services for the next few years." The wireless phone companies are required to keep their analog networks running through 2006.

Cellular for Charity

Often, you'll simply return your old phone when you buy a new one, particularly if the wireless carrier is offering a trade-in discount incentive. But you also might want to consider your pet charity in the process.

For example, Sprint PCS donates a portion of its phone-resale net proceeds to Easter Seals and the National Organization on Disability. Verizon Wireless donates mobile phones, airtime, and money to domestic-violence shelters and prevention programs.

Similarly, the Donate a Phone program, run jointly by the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association and Motorola, donates handsets, preprogrammed with emergency numbers, to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Information on where to mail or drop off the phones is available on the organization's Web site.