Think Green Live Clean

Photo Credit: Denise Chan

Ever wonder what to do with old electronics? Don’t want to throw them out (with good reason since they add pressure to increasingly full landfills and can pollute ground and water with lead, mercury, and other heavy metals…plus it just feels like a huge waste!) but don’t know how to recycle them?  Well, now recycling your old electronics is easy, and you can actually get paid for doing it and you probably won’t even have to worry about any shipping costs!

The Hawaii Electronic Waste Recycling Act, adopted in 2008, requires all manufacturers of electronics to provide recycling for desktop and laptop computers, printers, and monitors by January 1^st 2010 and TV’s by 2011. Although this is only Hawaii State Law, other states have already begun to implement similar statutes. This is huge because old electronics can be mailed to the manufacturers from virtually anywhere in the U.S. and in most cases the sender will be provided with a prepaid mailing label!  Wait, it gets even better…many manufacturers will pay you by check or gift card (based on the value of the returned electronics) for recycling regardless of brand name! (Check the bottom of this article for links to each specific brand websites for recycling to learn how you can take advantage of this program).

Four retailers, Toshiba, Best Buy, Sony, and ecoNew will also pay you by check or gift card for your old electronics regardless of the brand name. These manufacturers are not only recycling desktop and laptop computers, printers, and monitors but also cell phone, GPS trackers, cameras, camcorders, projectors, home and car audio receivers, DVD players, MP3 players, game systems and video games. If your old electronics are not worth a dime, you can still recycle for free by printing out a free mailing label. To recycle through this program you must pack your item and ship using a UPS mailing label that is prepaid by Toshiba, Best Buy, Sony, or ecoNew.

Recycling websites by brand name:

Acer, Gateway, Emachines, Apple, Next, ASUS, BenQ, Insignia, Dynex, Canon, Dell, Alienware, ESP All-In-One, Easyshare All-In-One, AOL, Envision, Epson, Lifebook Notebook, Stylistic Tablet PC, Hannspree, HP, Compaq, Voodoo, Digital, Apollo Computer, Hitachi, Aspect, Cornerstone, IBM, Kyocera, LG, Goldstar, Zenith, Motorola, OKI, Panasonic, Pioneer

and click here to read more about the new Hawaii Electronics Recycling Law