Let’s face it-your electronics age with time. As the new phones and laptops come out, they tend to oust your faulty goods. You might wonder what to do with the old stuff. Here are some great ideas with how to reduce, reuse, and recycle old computers and phones.
Reduce
Reduce your use of phones by waiting for your contract to be up. This does two things. It forces you to care less about material goods. It also forces you to wait for a phone that is half paid for. When the phone company knows that you can take off without notice, they want to pull you back in with incentives. So they will give you credit after a certain amount of time, if you renew your contract. If you are happy with your plan, wait it out, and sign up again.
As computers go, you might as well get as much use out of yours as you can. Buy all of the things you need on one device in the first place. Buy a computer with good RAM so that you don’t have to buy more and use a secure cloud tool to help store long-term files in a system that backs up data hourly.
Reuse
Reusing materials is better than recycling because it costs little to no energy to do it and it means less buying of new products. Craigslist and EBay are great methods for reselling your old goods. The good thing about electronics is that they often have some resale value. That means that when you upgrade, you can pay for part of it with the money you make from the old one. So if you are getting rid of your laptop, sell it on EBay for the best price or one Craigslist so that you don’t have to ship it.
Recycle
Recycle your electronics following these rules. Do not just place your computer in the trash. Contact the local landfill and find out if they have an electronic recycling program. Old devices can be reused for parts and recycled properly without harming the environment. Wipe the hard drive clean before you head to the recycling center.
