Just Got New Cell Phone? What About the Old One?
So I recently received an email from Verizon offering me a brand new cell phone for free. Well, that’s just the hook and they just want me to extend my contract again. I don’t foresee not using Verizon since almost all my family and many of my friends are also on Verizon, making the majority of my calls free. This provides me an opportunity to get a new cell phone for free. As I contemplated this, as much as a new phone would be cool, what would I do with the old phone?
Most major cell phone service providers have nice donation/recycling programs.
- Verizon – HopeLine donates your old phone to support victims of domestic violence
- T-Mobile – will recycle or reuse old devices and all proceeds go to their charity programs
- Sprint – will recycle or reuse old phones and proceeds go to Internet Safety for Kids, they additionally have a buy-back program for old Sprint PCS or Nextel phones
- AT&T – is a complete recycling program for phones and accessories
As I was looking into other options, I found this article called 50 Ways to Leave Your Cell Phone with many other options. So for those of you that might have one (or 3) older phones that you don’t use (you know who you are), take that step and donate/recycle those devices. One of the cool things about most of these donation options is that they will also take batteries, phone accessories, even PDAs.
My final decision on this whole new cell phone thing goes back to the three Rs. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In this case, I’m choosing to reduce. This means that I have decided to not get a new cell phone at this point in time. My current cell phone works just fine and ultimately the newer cell phones don’t provide features that I can’t wait to get my hands (except the iPhone, but that won’t work with Verizon anyway). So until there is some compelling reason for me to get a new phone, I’m sticking with what I have.
Tags: cell phone, donate, environment, green, recycle
February 6th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Ugh, I swear these things multiply like rabbits when you aren’t looking! I recycled half-a-dozen phones last year and I somehow have three more of the darn things to get rid of.
If you’re interested, the EPA has some good information about phone recycling on their website as well; the link is http://www.epa.gov/cellphone/.
Thanks for the reminder to get off my lazy butt and clean out my closet….
February 7th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Doug, I don’t know how you acquire so many phones. Although I did recently read a statistics that the average person replaces their cell phone every 18 months. Not exactly 9 phones in 2 years… So glad you are recycling your phones, or perhaps even inspired to donate to a good cause.
February 8th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
They accumulated over a ten-year period because I couldn’t just throw them in the trash and it was tough to find places to recycle them until fairly recently. I’m not that much of a gadget freak ;-).
February 8th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
One of my cousin’s sent me an email, and I think it would be good for everyone to see…
“I would like to say, as someone who works at a domestic violence safe shelter, that you should find a local place like mine and see if they take old cell phones and donate the old phones that you are no longer using. Even the incredibly old bag phones provide them with some funds for their programs.”
Thanks for the information. It touches another point that is often brought up with green initiatives to support local organizations/vendors. So if you are looking to donate your old cell phone, try contacting one of your local causes.