The beautiful thing about disposing of your old electronics is that doing the right thing gives you more than a rosy feeling; it can actually pay you. The trick is to hand off your own gear immediately, while it still has some value.

For example, suppose you had a 32-gigabyte AT&T iPhone at the time the Verizon iPhone 4 came out. You could have sold it to online buy-back site Gazelle.com for $430, which would have easily covered the AT&T fee for terminating your contract early. Similarly, buyback sites NextWorth and ReCellular.com were offering $155 for a year-old iPhone 3GS, or $145 for a working BlackBerry Bold 9700.

For older, less valuable gear, just remember: “Best Buy, Radio Shack, or Target.” These chains accept your old electronic junk, either in-store or by mail. Here are the details on the Best Buy program, Radio Shack’s program, and Target’s. They do more than accept your junk—they actually pay you for it, in the form of a gift card or future-purchase discount.

The Web is filled with other ways to get rid of your aging gear and feel good doing it. Three examples:

• Freecycle.org. Like a CraigsList for freebies. List the stuff you don’t want anymore; interested parties come by your place to take it off your hands.
• Cellphonesforsoldiers.com. Turns in used cellphones to Recellular.com, which “pays” the organization with calling cards that soldiers overseas can use to call their families.
• 911cellphonebank.org. Provides old phones for emergency use by, for example, domestic-violence victims.

Unloading your old gadgets through any of these outlets is infinitely better than the default graveyard for them: the back of your gadget drawer.

4 Comments

1. 1. armandofiloteo 12:40 PM 4/22/11

   You can also sell your smart phones to http://www.Technollo.com. They offer fair prices for almost all phones ever made. Most older phones will be recycled but it is worth checking out.

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2. 2. gordonriggs 11:31 PM 5/13/11

   For an innovative and effective approach to reusing and recycling computers, please visit http://www.freegeek.org. "Free Geek’s mission is to recycle technology and provide access to computers, the internet, education and job skills in exchange for community service." - http://www.freegeek.org/about/mission-statement/

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3. 3. francescunningham 03:11 AM 10/5/11

   Now that the iPhone 4S has a better antenna, I’m kissing my iPhone 4’s death grip goodbye. I checked out the offers for an iPhone 4 32G Verizon in mint condition and here’s what I got: $268 (Cash for iPhones), $204 (Gazelle) and $250 (Totem). Will definitely sell mine to the actual top bidder. So excited to see how Siri will blow my mind!

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4. 4. francescunningham in reply to francescunningham 02:01 AM 10/10/11

   Can’t help but give in to the 8 megapixel camera of the new iPhone 4S. I’m ditching my iPhone 3GS 16 GB for $171. I can’t believe that Cash for iPhones is offering me this much considering that my device is OLD. Turns out that iPhones do have a high resale value compared to other smart phones – I’d say it’s worth the money I spent 2 years ago!

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