Digital gold: Turning techno-junk into cash

“I am a consumer that definitely turns in my old cell phones, cameras and computer equipment for cash,” said LaTosha Johnson, a marketing consultant who lives in Elmhurst, Ill. “Just last month, I turned in my cell phone to Sprint and received a $15 credit that will be applied to my phone bill.”

Johnson also squeezed value out of some unused gadgets the old fashioned way, selling a printer and a digital camera to a pawnshop for $80.

“It enables me to have a little extra money in my pocket, which is something everyone can use these days,” Johnson said.

For generations, recycling programs only worked if they were convenient to consumers. But experts say that monetary enticements are equally effective at luring new users.

“Access to a recycling program is the No. 1 factor in success, but you’re going to definitely juice up your participation rate with incentives (like giving cash back),” said Ed Skernolis, executive director of the National Recycling Coalition.

At the corporate end of this trend, there are incentives, too, Skernolis added. Those include a company’s image in this environmental age as well their adherence to as a slew of new recycling laws. Eighteen states now govern how old technology is discarded.

“Absolutely, there is a certain greening of corporations going on here,” Skernolis said. “If company ‘X’ has 10 percent of the market, they should expect to be retrieving 10 percent of the products. It becomes a market responsibility.”

At the same time, though, collecting e-waste also has become a promising marketing tactic, companies acknowledge.

“We are focused on (recycling) as part of our brand DNA,” said Mona Pal, product manager at Toshiba. “We don’t, to date, see a measurable impact on business (simply) because we have more green products (or because we are offer recycling). But this is not something we’re doing as a business strategy. It’s something we’re doing as a brand strategy.”

Staples, meanwhile, sees recycling as part of its customer service model – the same way it views helping people set up their home computer networks. But making future sales is definitely included in their thinking.

“If a customer buys a printer from Staples it’s our responsibility to take that back when they’re done with it. And we hope they’ll come back to us when it’s time to buy their next component,” Rankin said.

Staples says that it has recycled 2 million pounds of technology since 2007, including 24 million ink cartridges and more than 25,000 cell phones and PDAs. Toshiba has set a goal of recycling 12 million pounds of e-waste by 2010.

No doubt, the rate at which tech refuse is stacking up in America’s homes and landfills is creating fresh urgency. E-waste accounts for 2 percent of the garbage stream and is rising. Some 133,000 computers are thrown away daily in this country, says Staples.

Replacement cycles are growing shorter as well for laptops and cell phones as the technology leaps forward. Between 1980 and 2005, 180 million electronics products had accumulated in drawers and on shelves in U.S. homes, the EPA says. Since 2005, that e-waste collection has ballooned to 235 million pounds, including 66 million pounds of old desktop computers and 99 million pounds of broken or unused televisions.

But if you choose to recycle your gadgets, where do they go? According to watchdogs like the Basel Action Network, about 80 percent of the U.S. e-waste supposedly headed to recycling is put on container ships and exported to countries like China, creating black markets for digital trash and secret, heavily polluted technology-breakdown sites.

Toshiba promises that for the old tech items it receives that can’t be recycled, it “will dispose of the products responsibly.” Toshiba has also partnered with the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation and with eBay’s Rethink initiative to keep unwanted digital products out of landfills. At Staples, Rankin said he has personally walked through and audited its chosen recycling centers to watch the old machines get crunched down safely and cleanly into raw materials destined for reuse.

But when consumers like Johnson and Mendelson are mainly mulling quick cash when they recycle their gizmos, does a cell phone’s final resting place ever enter their minds?

“I really never gave it that much thought,” Johnson said. “But I’d always hoped it would go to someone who really needs it.”

“I’m always concerned,” added Mendelson. “But admittedly, I have blind faith that Toshiba is doing the right thing when it comes to recycling these products. Right now, we have to worry about getting by.”

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