anyone ever use http://www.gazelle.com/ ?

they were featured in a magazine i read and the website will give you quotes for what they'll give you for your old junk. even if the value is $0 they will recycle for free

looks like they send you a box, pay the postage and cut you a check. i'm ready to clear out some old junk and feel like a responsible person.

i looked up an old gps i have and the offer is $50 for it. not too bad! apparently they recycle the parts that they can. i plan to use it and will report back!

11/6/2010 4:52:58 PM

I always see if I can lay the swindle to some moron on Craigslist. That normally works out.

11/6/2010 5:22:23 PM

There are hundreds of companies like this. Many are less than reputable. Most of this "recycling" ends up in bangladesh where basically slave labor breaks down components in slum towns.

There are only a couple of companies that I trust who explicitly state they do domestic recycling and disposal, and even then you can't be 100% sure.

^god you are a waste of space

11/6/2010 6:05:46 PM

i already went through a huge giveaway on CL of the majority of my old electronics...i wasn't looking for money, but i probably would have recycled it had it been convenient

11/6/2010 6:09:11 PM

I, too, think about recycling obsolete electronics but usually end up trying to sell them on CL

Doesn't best buy have a recycling box at the front of.the store you can drop stuff off in?

11/6/2010 7:00:06 PM

http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/donate.htm

or for people in raleigh:

http://www.wakegov.com/recycling/business/multimaterialdropoff.htm

11/6/2010 7:06:48 PM

Rural counties will let you throw truckloads of hazardous material directly in their landfills.

11/6/2010 7:16:08 PM

I've used them before for an HTC cell phone that was still relatively new and worked good but was horrible on a normal resale price like CL or ebay. They're legit, even down to shipping you the actual box and sticker to ship it back to them in. Just be forewarned the condition of your items can be subjective (poor, fair, good, etc.) and they could upgrade or downgrade the quoted condition after they receive it and before finalizing your offer. For my phone that made an offer difference of $120 in excellent condition down to $90ish for fair condition. That was still more than ebay offered so I took it. I'd say in your case you shouldn't sweat it.

11/7/2010 7:35:57 PM

thanks for the feedback! im going to give it a shot

11/8/2010 6:10:04 PM

here's a story about what really happens when you recycle electronics

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/21/132204954/after-dump-what-happens-to-electronic-waste

Quote :

"Many people will receive a new computer or cell phone this holiday season — and throw out their old equipment. And when old TVs and computers end up in landfills, the toxic metals and flame retardants they contain can cause environmental problems. Yet even recycling your e-waste, as it's called, does not always mean you're doing the right thing. "The dirty little secret is that when you take [your electronic waste] to a recycler, instead of throwing it in a trashcan, about 80 percent of that material, very quickly, finds itself on a container ship going to a country like China, Nigeria, India, Vietnam, Pakistan — where very dirty things happen to it," says Jim Puckett, the executive director of the Basal Action Network, which works to keep toxic waste out of the environment. Recyclers can make money from selling scavenged metal from electronic equipment, says Puckett, but the process to retrieve usable metals is typically extremely toxic. Workers who remove the metals often have no protective equipment and breathe in high levels of toxic chemicals, which are then released into the atmosphere. And most of the countries where the processing takes place — China, India, Ghana, Pakistan — do not have regulations in place to protect workers or prevent the primitive recycling operations. Puckett describes a trip he took, to Guiya, China, in December 2001 as a "cyber-age nightmare." "It's the only part of the world where you'll go and see thousands of women on any given day that are sitting ... basically cooking printed circuit boards," he says. "As a result, they're breathing all of the brominated flame retardants and the lead and tin that are being heated up. You smell it in the air. You get headaches as soon as you enter this area. It really is quite sad." What You Should Do With Your Old Electronics So how does your computer or handheld electronic device end up in developing countries, where people remove usable metals by hand? The answer, says Puckett, is that electronic recycling is a very lucrative business. "A recycler can be a recycler in name only," he says. "These so-called recyclers have found that that they can make a lot more money just exporting this material, because the U.S. laws completely allow it to happen. And they're able to externalize the real costs of doing things in an environmentally responsible way." Hundreds of containers leave North America every day full of electronic waste, says Puckett. "It's a massive trade and what has happened is, we've passed laws to make recycling become the password. And unfortunately, it's the password to a lot of very sad results," he says. But there are ways to assure that your old electronic equipment is handled by a reputable recycler, says Puckett. Check to see if your recycler is first looking to see if old equipment can be reused. "Reuse is always more environmentally sound," says Puckett. "If you can give that an extra life — an extra couple years — and so refurbishing is really what you want your recycler to do." If refurbishment is not an option, reputable recyclers will use mechanical shredding and a high-tech separation device to take out the usable metals, which can then be sent to a smelter. "There are about half a dozen smelters on the planet who are good environmental smelters," he says. "There's a whole lot of them that aren't. ... But that's how it's done, when you don't dump it off-shore. You very carefully take those metals, take those plastics and try to recycle each one of them separately." You can also check to see if your recycler is listed on the Environmental Protection Agency's list of approved recycling partners."

12/21/2010 12:52:42 PM