Comments on: Why Your Old Cell Phone Could Cost You Cash

By: candy

candy — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:07:45 +0000

hey, old non working cell phones and most other electronic or computer parts contain precious metals like GOLD and PLATNIUM!!! do not pay to donate them to a fat cat company that will make alot of money from the metals in this stuff. just sell them for metals recovery on ebay!! you should get paid for your stuff and keep it out of the landfill at the same time. if you toss your old electronics into the trash, you are actualy throwing gold into the trask!! all you need to do to verify this is take the battery out of your cell phone and look at it. you will see that where the battery contacts like up with the contacts on the phone itself are yellow colored. well that is 22kt gold plating on the conectors. the circuit board is gold plated. even simple video game cartriges are made of gold!!! just think, these big recyclers are in it for the money.most could care less about the enviroment!!!

By: Karen

Karen — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:32:43 +0000

I have a not-so-old LG cell phone which fell in water a year ago and I want to recycle it, but all my memory is still in the phone, although it’s completely broken. Can I recycle it safely thru this site or another site, without a company not getting hold of my information? There’s no memory chip in the phone where I can erase the memory from. I haven’t recycled it yet because of this reason. Is there someone out there who can advise me on how to handle this and which is the best place to use to recycle this phone?

By: CarlB

CarlB — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:54:10 +0000

If cell ‘phone companies would stop ‘locking’ handsets in such a way as to prevent their owners from continuing to use them after they switch providers, maybe there wouldn’t be so many unused handsets gathering dust. This particular anti-competitive tactic should’ve been prohibited years ago, but no one wants to stand up to big business and big money, so the heap of locked, incompatible or useless hardware continues to grow… to the detriment of consumers who paid good money for the hardware when it was new.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:34:50 +0000

I recycled my old cell phones and this company provided me with the pre-paid packaging labels. All I had to do was buy padded envelopes— which for 10 of them it was only 4 bucks!!! Its called http://www.recyclemycellphone.org You can even print out a page for tax records!!!! They also donate $1 to EarthWorks for every phone received. Good website!

By: Kathy

Kathy — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 21:10:46 +0000

Recycling is one of my “things” to do. Newspapers, magazines, plastic, glass, cans of every sort. When I am done with it there is a stack or bag that it goes into. My car is a 1971 bug almost everything in it came from another bug even the engine has been rebuilt. The tires are retreads and the battery is reconditioned. It annoys my kids but that makes it even better. It is in great shape and starts even if it is really cold in Silt, CO. That is much better than my husbands 2001 VW Beatle. It has a radiator and a diesel engine (has not started for 3 days). The only thing it has (when it starts) is a heater with forced air. I will take my old one any day over his. Thanks for letting me vent.

By: Steven

Steven — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:39:39 +0000

I didn’t know you could recycle old phones. That would be a great marketing campaign for the cell phone companies with the whole “go green” trend. Really interesting article thanks!

By: Trey Granger

Trey Granger — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:52:28 +0000

So after reading the title, I totally thought there was going to be some charge for storing obsolete phones. Isn’t it sad that these are the kinds of things that would motivate people to recycle more? Oh well, I better take my old phone to the recycling bin.