and maybe even get some money for them! Wanted to share a website I ran across recently called YouRenew that lets you essentially "sell" your old electronics (phones, mp3 players, video game systems, etc.) to this company which will then re-sell the items on websites like e-Bay so that they don't stop getting used and get tossed into landfills.
Given how disposable our society has become, this seems like a great idea to minimize the electronic waste going straight into our landfills. Of course, as William McDonough has noted, recycling only prolongs the inevitable. Eventually, these items are still going to be disposed of somewhere. Further, if the items are less resource-efficient (i.e. use more energy) then perhaps its not as good an idea to keep them in use. And finally, the real solution isn't to recycle, but to change our disposable economy into something that makes more sense (has anyone noticed that there are virtually no repair shops in existence anymore?)
Yet, as someone who has like four old cell phones in my desk drawer, I find YouRenew's idea pretty engaging. At the very least, older products that are still completely usable can get a new lease on life for a while with someone else, and that's always better than having something just rot away in a landfill OR your desk drawer.
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A couple other options for reuse:
ReplyDelete- Freecycle: location-based listservs that allow people to get and give free stuff they no longer use
- Donating them to non-profits: there are all sorts of non-profits that take computers, cell phones, cars and lots of other stuff either to use (as in the case of old computers) or to sell to raise money
- Goodwill: reuse, plus employment/training for low-wage workers