My mom’s last move cost us $900. Just her stuff, no one else’s. When the movers arrived, all her junk collected over the years was either still unpacked, or packed into teeny-tiny boxes. These strong moving men were running back and forth from the huge moving truck with hand vaccums, purses, and dinky little shopping-bagfuls of stuff.
By the time we got to the new place, the sun had long since set — and the electricity hadn’t been turned on yet. These men worked by candlelight — somewhat of a safety issue, since they were carrying heavy dressers and beds up a flight of stairs –
Still, we all survived, and during the unpacking process I found bag after bag of useless, broken junk that should’ve been thrown away years ago — each of which probably cost my mom about $10 in moving costs.
Among the finds: a small stockpile of old cell phones. I took these to The Body Shop — I’d donated a cell a few months back for their program that helped victims of domestic violence — but the program had ended August 30. The woman working there said that the phones hadn’t mailed out yet, so she’d go ahead and put mine with the pile.
But for you packrats out there with a growing cell phone collection, with not a lotta green in the wallet but lotsa green in your heart, this is what’d I recommend you do, in this order:
1. See if you can exchange your phones for new stuff — like gift certificates to Circuit City or MSN music — via RipMobile. If they’ll pay you something for your phone, go for it — you may as well get a lil money if you can. If your phone’s non-working or nondesirable, you can still send it in for no money, but I would try #2 –
2. Donate your phone via Earthworks’ Recycle My Cell Phone. All phones are welcomed, no matter how ugly or nonfunctional — This is very much an environment-oriented initiative, aimed at recycling as many cells as possible with the strictest environmental standards.
There are other programs — Collective Good or Charitable Recycling, for example, let you pick from a number of charities to donate to, and dog lovers might opt for Phones for Bones.
Right now I kinda hate my cell phone — I technically “upgraded” a few months ago, but it feels like a downgrade. Trying to stick it out till I can switch to Working Assets, after my T-Mobile contract runs out…
Filed in: recycle cellphone bodyshop environment
September 30th, 2005 at 4:39 am
you are so awesome. i have a non-working cell phone that’s been sitting around cluttering up my house until i had some time to research into how i could recycle it and now you’ve done the research for me! i’m going to send it to recycle my cell phone ASAP.
btw i’m pretty proud to have a cell phone to recycle - all prior cell phones i’ve let get stolen. but i suppose that having things stolen is a form of recycling too…
October 1st, 2005 at 10:02 am
That’s an optimistic way of looking at cell phone theft :)
October 1st, 2005 at 7:49 pm
thanks for the info … i’ve got a couple cell phones sitting around the house that I wasn’t sure what to do with.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
OR, you could weigh up whether you REALLY need a cellphone at all. Are you a surgeon on call? Is it essential that you are reachable wherever you are, at any time of day? Or, like most people, do you just use it to give yourself wiggle room not to be where you said you would at a given time. so you canuse the cell to call and say”Oh, I’m running late, the traffic is awful”, when really you got engrossed in US Weekly and left the house late. I gave up my phone when I remembered life without it. I’m sao much happier. Never miind the people in Africa that mine for the mineral that is a component of all phones. ‘Conflict cellphones’ should be next on the agenda. If you buy a phone you are buying into death and misery in someone else’s village. Is it still “Good to talk”?
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/Articles/TheStandardColtan.asp
October 26th, 2007 at 9:39 am
bradley — Are you available for parties?