Spring Cleaning
Think about all the media and electronics cluttering your house -- CDs you no longer listen to, video games your kids have outgrown, cell phones that don't work anymore. They're everywhere!
CMCH encourages you to clean house! The ideas and websites below can help you locate ways and places to donate, recycle, or sell your media and electronics. Getting them out of your house will help your family reduce the amount of media they use, help others who can use items you no longer want, and help the Earth by making sure materials are properly disposed. What are you waiting for? Get the family together and start cleaning!
Donate
There are many nonprofit organizations that can refurbish equipment and make use of it to carry out their work. Remember that before you donate computers and cell phones, you will need to erase all personal information from them. Links to instructions on how to do this are below.
Deleting personal info on cell phones
Deleting personal info on computers
TechSoup: Search by zip code to find recyclers and refurbishers who can make sure your equipment gets to schools
and charities in good working order.
Picture Tomorrow: Donate cameras and receive a tax-deduction.
National Cristina Foundation: Matches technoloy donations to charities, schools and public
agencies in all 50 states, Canada, and in many countries around the
world.
Call to Protect: Collects cell phones to benefit
survivors of domestic violence. Some phones are refurbished and become lifelines for domestic violence survivors when
faced with an emergency situation; others are sold and proceeds donated to agencies working to fight domestic violence.
Recycling for Charities: Donate your old cell phone, PDA, digital camera, or iPod to be recycled and benefit the charity of your choice.
CollectiveGood: Select the charity you want to help, mail in your phone, PDA, or pager, and receive a tax credit.
Recycle
Sometimes, electronics are not in good enough shape to be used by an organization, but may have parts that can be reused or recycled. The links below can help you locate places that recycle these kinds of materials.
Earth 911: Find a recyling or re-use location near you by entering your zip code.
Environmental Protection Agency: Use an interactive map to find recycling programs specific to your state.
United States Postal Service: Free recycling program through the mail; send in your ink cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, or MP3 players. Currently a pilot program in selected locations.
Manufacturers who offer recycling programs: Find out whether the maker of your electronics will recycle them.
Retailers who offer recycling programs: Find out whether the store you bought your electronics at will recycle them.
Sell
Media and electronics are expensive, so it’s often hard to part with items you paid a lot of money for. Want to see if you can make back some of the money you spent? Here are some ideas for selling your items, especially CDs, video games and other media that are not needed for donations:
Have a yard sale: Gather up everyrhing you want to get rid of and host a sale in your front yard. Better yet, get a neighborhood effort going and have everyone put out their wares on the same day to attract a bigger crowd.
Gazelle: Enter in the kind of electronics you want to sell, answer a few questions about the condition they're in, and they'll send you a box to ship it to them and a check for your items' values.
CraigsList: Use the links on the right to select your location, then the “post to classifieds.” Add a description and pictures of the item, set a price, and wait for people to email you. There is no fee to use this website.
eBay: The popular auction site lets you post items for sale, set a starting price, and sell to the highest bidder. You pay only a small fee to list the item and then a percentage of the total selling value.
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