LEAST Harmful Ways to Get Rid of Old Gadgets
Thousands of phones, tablets and computers are manufactured every year. Likewise, thousands of people replace their gadgets yearly. Did you ever wonder where most of these stuffs go?
A few of them find a new owner, some of them land in electronic land fields in developing countries, and many of them end up being disposed of indiscriminately anywhere, posing harm to harm to the environment.
Electronic gadgets are some of those things that are hard to dispose of because non-biodegradable. But there are certainly less harmful ways to get rid of them.
Donate
If your gadgets are relatively new or still desirable, you may be able to pass them to family and friends to extend their working life. You may even sell them online on sites like eBay and Olyx. If you feel quite philanthropic though, consider donating your gadgets to charity. Some places accept printer toner cartridges, cellphones, laptops, satnavs, and cameras and like.
Recycle
If they are already old and broken, then recycling may be the best thing to do. The European Union has created a policy called the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive), which requires manufacturers to have their own facility for recycling their customers’ old gadgets when they sell them a new item.
Many companies have responded to the directive by creating special programs to handle this matter. An example of which is Apple, which allows its customers to send their old iPhones, iPads or computer back to the company. If an item is still worth anything, they pay customers back a certain amount. If it’s completely unusable, the company takes the responsibility to recycle it.
Another example is Samsung which partnered with Distributor Take Back Scheme. The latter owns a network of recycling sites across the UK that receives recyclable gadgets for a range of manufacturers. The recycling organization receives a donation from Samsung for every Samsung gadgets it handles.
So, whatever your device is, there is always some place where you can dispose it off without feeling guilty.
