Electronics Recycling Services: An Effective Way to Help Protect the Environment
Many people break their cell phones or upgrade to a newer model every couple of years. If you have a family of four, this results in many worthless phones lying around in drawers that are designated to hold all the junk you aren't sure how to handle. Taking your old mobile phones to an electronic recycling service is an effective way to recycle the phones and decrease the trash in our landfills.
Good Reasons to Recycle Your Old Phones
Even though your mobile phone is past its prime and not "cool" any longer, it can still help lessen the carbon footprint we leave behind. It takes energy to produce the materials necessary to create electronic equipment. Anything consumers can do to prevent the manufacturers from having to produce an entirely new piece of equipment saves energy, helps lower greenhouse gas emissions, and reduces air and water pollution. Ways that electronic recycling services use old cell phones includes:
- They use the worn out chargers to create new ones.
- They refurbish the phones so that they meet the original factory standards and then resell them.
- They use the internal components to make other useful electronic devices.
Think about Safety before Getting Rid of an Old Mobile Phone
Whether you recycle, sell, or donate your old cell phone to a charity or trade it in for a newer model, it is important to clear all your personal data from the device. Your address, date of birth, passwords, banking information, and many more pieces of data may be stored in your phone. Deleting this type of sensitive information from the device helps protect you and your family from identity theft. Ways to delete the information from your device include these:
- Read the owners manual that came with your cellular device. It usually tells you how to do a factory reset. This wipes the memory clean and ensures that the device no longer has your personal information. If you have lost the owner's manual, you can usually find the instructions online.
- Remove the SIM device from the old phone. If you are getting a new phone, typically the salesclerk can switch the SIM card to your new phone. If not, read the owner's manual to learn how to delete the information stored on the card before you recycle it.
It is a wise idea to keep one outdated mobile phone just in case you break yours and can't get another one quickly. It is always good to have a backup in case of an emergency, particularly these days when so many consumers no longer have landlines. Nevertheless, having a drawer full of old cell phones just clutters up your home. Consider helping the environment by taking the various outdated phones to a local electronics recycling service like Arcoa.