Guaranteed payment for recycling your electronics

Here on EcoGeek we've written a lot about how to recycle your old electronics. First, because it's a great idea and there are so many electronics out there not being used but with lots of useful and expensive parts. And second, because many of those parts are poisonous, so many end up in landfills that it's posing a huge environmental problem.

 

We've written about Target selling re-furbished electronics, how Staples is trying to make recycling easier, how Dell is going Cradle to Cradle with all its products, and even how to recycle your old laptop yourself and even make some money at it! But what if you actually got paid to bring your old electronics back when you no longer needed them?

 

TechForward Inc., a Los Angeles-based company, will actually do just that. For an upfront fee ($9 for an iPod for example) you get the right to sell the device back at a pre-determined price, based on how long you keep it. If you send back the iPod after a year, you get $40, $20 after two years.

"The trade-in prices don't look competitive with eBay auctions, but TechForward offers the convenience of free packaging and shipping. Its prices assume the item is in good condition. The company won't pay for an item that's broken, though it will supply packaging, pay for shipping and arrange to recycle it."

However, we've also discussed "buymytronics" here at EcoGeek, an admittedly smaller operation that actually will buy your electronics without any pre-fee, and even if they're broken. The price, of course, changes based on the condition of your device, and the range of devices they accept is more limited.

All in all, a good situation. Even if you're not planning on selling the item back but want to keep it beyond its "payback" period, for the convenience of recycling and proper disposal, $9 seems like a fair deal to me.

via Physorg