Going Green: How to get rid of your gadgety crap
I’d be willing to bet that there are very few people out there who don’t have an old Motorola StarTac in a kitchen drawer or a pale, yellowish 14-inch CRT monitor in the basement or a sticky, dusty keyboard under the bed. I’m just like you — probably worse. I have gadgets from the Reagan administration that are serving no good purpose other than to take up space in my already sorta-small apartment.
Time for some spring cleaning, no? The focus of this post will be to spotlight various ways to get rid of three types of gadgets; broken ones, working but worthless ones, and working but valuable ones. I’ll focus on programs that are available nationwide (or mostly nationwide) and aren’t brand- or product-specific.
Broken Gadgets
The temptation may be to either throw your broken doodads right into the trash or, if you’re like me, hold on to them forever while you wait for the day that you’re finally able to solder. I constantly find myself saying “Oh, that just needs to be re-soldered.” But do I even own a soldering gun? Absolutely not. And throwing electronics in the garbage is just poor form, like smoking at a day care center; some people still do it, but everyone knows it’s bad. Gadgets contain harmful chemicals like mercury and kryptonite, which wreak havoc on the environment.
E-cycling Central: www.eiae.org
1-800-Got-Junk: www.1800gotjunk.com
Still, they take just about anything and if you have the money, it’s well worth it.
Be sure to check out your local electronics stores, too, as most of them have drop buckets for old, broken cell phones and other various in-store recycling programs.
Working But Worthless Gadgets
One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. For every busted, broken, cracked-screen gadget you own, there are probably hundreds of eager tinkerers out there willing to try to fix whatever needs fixing. Here are some good ways to unload this stuff.
The Freecycle Network: www.freecycle.org
Local factions use Yahoo! Groups and, again, sign-up is free. Might as well join, huh?
Craigslist “Free Stuff” Section: www.craigslist.org
Basically, you have to consider whether or not you want strangers to know where you live and that you have a bunch of electronics in your house. This is where a members-only group like Freecycle seems a little less dicey.
Working Gadgets
I think that one of the best aspects of being a gadget freak is that, often times, you can sell your used items and use the money you make to buy newer ones. It’s the circle of life — the wheel of for-tune, if you will. Here are a few places to make a buck.
eBay’s gotten a recent makeover and selling stuff has gotten a bit easier with its much more streamlined interface. You have a bit of control over when you’ll get your cash but not as much control over how much cash you’ll get, since you’re selling stuff at auction. There’s also a Buy-It-Now setting that allows you to sell stuff at a fixed rate, but I’ve found that if you set up a 5- to 7-day auction that ends on a Sunday night and has a starting price of 99 cents and no reserve price, you’ll get the best return on your stuff. I’ve sold a lot of stuff on eBay and this tactic seems to work best for me.
There are other auction sites out there and you can sell your stuff on sites like Amazon.com similar to how eBay works. Try eBay first, though.
Second Rotation: www.secondrotation.com
You won’t get quite as much for your stuff as you would on, say, eBay, but the process is a lot easier. You can ship all of your crap to the same place for free and you won’t have to chase buyers around for payments or worry about your seller rating. Downsides include that Second Rotation’s rating of your items’ condition is a bit subjective. What you may think is in mint condition, they might think is in fair condition.
Dealtree and EZTradein.com: www.eztradein.com
But EZTradein.com uses Dealtree and offers cash instead of store cr
edit. I recently tested out the service by sending in an old video camera (a Canon GL-1) and, although I thought was in excellent condition, EZTradein.com said it had small scratches on the LCD screen and docked me over $100 from my take. Payment was a bit slow, too. I shipped the camera out on March 22, the company acknowledged receiving it on March 27, and I didn’t get paid until April 10. It was an okay experience but I don’t know if I’d use it again. However, there are a LOT of items that you can sell, which is a nice touch.
BuyMyTronics.com: www.buymytronics.com
Other Ways
These are just a few methods you can use to get rid of your stuff for free or low cost (or high cost, in the case of 1-800 Got Junk) and even a few ways to make some money back on your old gadgets. There are undoubtedly hundreds of other ways to recycle your electronics responsibly so if you know of a good one, leave a comment!