Old Cell Phones and the City Dump
I can’t imagine how many cell phones end up as waste filling our landfills and dumps and for completely unnecessary reasons. I recently upgraded to a new phone and thought about what I should do. Previously I had donated my old cell phone to my carrier when getting a new phone.
I realize they probably reuse the old parts and potentially resell them which is a great thing considering it’s far better to recycle then to just place in the trash. But this last time I had some different ideas. At first I thought, maybe I could use some of the parts. As an electronics hobbyist I fantasized about using the LCD screen for one of my many projects. I even considered selling some of the parts online and while that seemed like a viable situation, I’d both be recycling my old cell phone for the greater good as well as make a little extra cash doing so on the side, I ended up donating my cellphone to a charitable company which happens to take old cell phones, refurbishes them, and then provides them to people and communities in the developing world.
I thought this was the best of all situations and I walked away feeling quite good about the situation. In this sense I was able to make sure a non-biodegradable electronic device wouldn’t end up in the ground somewhere but also was able to provide something which I didn’t need to those who could. I wish there were more opportunities to do things like this.
It was pretty easy to do too. I removed all of my sensitive information from my phone. That is important regardless if one is simply throwing it away, selling it to someone else, or giving it away. The venue I found online gave me simple detailed instructions as to how to send it off to them. I packed it into an old box I received as a parcel earlier and sent it out. They paid for shipping. It was all that easy. I’ve read about various university students using the computational power of old cell phones to provide for many needed services in the third world, even using them to do simple medical tests in hard to reach locations, and while I wasn’t exactly doing this I was doing something I think was about as close as I could. The next time I upgrade my phone to newer version I think I’ll do the exact same thing. I would suggest anyone interested in doing just this to simply go to a search engine and search for Sell Mobile Phones for Cash Online. You could probably find many which cater to your own interests and provide a useful item to people who could use it.
