I have a bag of old cell phones that I’ve been told to find a way to recycle, preferably for reuse. Does anyone know of a good (easy) way to do this?
Check with local women’s shelters.
In my neighborhood, the ReStore, operated by Habitat for Humanity, accepts cellphones, also TVs, computers, etc. Their charge is $5 each, which is a lot less than the dump’s fee.
I’ve sent phones to these folks.
Here is a group in Massachusetts that will recycle cell phones. The website says, “Donated used cell phones will be refurbished and put to further use. Many phones are donated to shelters for abused adults and children so they may have 911 (emergency only) communication. Charitable Recycling also provides cell phones to medical patients who are awaiting organ transplants. Some phones are refurbished and redeployed in areas of the world where there are no land (wire) lines or where the cost of a new phone is prohibitive. Phones that cannot be refurbished or donated are recycled in an environmentally-responsible manner.”
In our area, the police stations collect the phones to refurbish for abuse victims to call 911.
There are plenty of places who take them for free, you certainly don’t need to pay a fee.
In fact, most cell phone providers should know of local places who take the phones!!
~VOW
Thanks for all the suggestions–if there are more, keep them coming! These phones and instructions come from work (my boss gave me the bag and told me to do this) and I doubt they’d be willing to pay a fee, so a free alternative would be best. And preferably one that didn’t require me to drive really far. I’ll ask my boss if she wants to pay to mail them somewhere.
The group I mentioned offer a pre-paid shipping label.
I don’t think the eyeglasses recycling boxes at Walmart say cell phones, but any dropped into one will be sold to finance providing eyeglasses to third world countries. Hearing aids dropped in the box will go to low income hearing impaired. Trust me on this. I will be going through stuff from Walmart tomorrow as I do most Wednesdays.
Most charities that work with the poor, homeless, abused etc will gladly accept cell phones for 911 use as others said; just find the closest one and drop them off.
I volunteer with the YWCA and we often get cell phones donated, believe me, every single one gets used and is much appreciated!
Cool, I will definitely look into that one.
I’ve seen cell phone donation boxes in Best Buy and Whole Foods.
As does Cell Phones for Soldiers.
I attempted to donate a phone (for emergency/911 use) but they said it was too old.
It depends on how old the phones are. I just used TechTwurl to sell my iPhone 3GS and got $150 for it. You could plug in phone models to their site and see if you can get any money for them. They’re a little slow, it took about three weeks total from me entering the sale on the site to them sending payment to my PayPal account, but they paid more than the other phone buyers out there. Anyway, you could see about selling any that are worth any money and donate the others.
Seconding Telemark’s suggestion. Our school collects cell phones regularly for this cause.
I’ve seen donation boxes at most of the malls I frequent.
Are there any that will actually send you an envelope to send the phones back in? (I know when I’ve bought cell phones they often include such a bag, but I haven’t kept any, and in this case I’d need several at that size.) I have 6 cell phones plus chargers to send in. The easiest way would be if they sent me a prepaid envelope. I don’t know that we have padded envelopes here so I’d have to drive somewhere and I’d rather not have to do that if there is an easier way. I know I sound lazy about this but it’s something for work and I’d rather not use my own gas and time and all that, yadda yadda. (Plus I don’t know my way around very well.)
Worst case scenario I use my University pccard (credit card) and buy a padded envelope at the post office which isn’t toooo far out of my way on the way home and just use the printable prepaid label.
But I figured I’d lob it out there for the brilliant minds (and copious experience) of the Dopers to see if there was one that would actually send me the envelope.
NOTE: Since I typed the above my Google Fu may have found a solution (I’d tried before with no luck). AT&T will send me an envelope, but I had to check a box saying I was a customer, which I’m not. Will they take non AT&T phones? It didn’t seem to say. I filled out the form to be sent one anyway, but I’d still like to hear of any alternatives in case it turns out I can’t use the AT&T one.
OK, your office has no padded envelopes? Do they at least have any cardboard boxes sitting around? What do things that are purchased arrive in? (Because the prepaid labels can be affixed to a cardboard box.)
Most of the cardboard boxes we have lying around are very large (like ones that hold multiple reams of copy paper, or the boxes they ship monitors in). Smaller boxes that things arrive in are recycled the same day. We have large manilla envelopes, but not padded envelopes.
(ETA: I work in the IT department of a University, so we don’t do a lot of shipping here. Virtually all of our “mail” is via inter-office envelopes.)