Get rid of that old mobile, it's easy

I recycled my old cell phone this weekend, and was congratulated by a fellow blogger who said, “that's great! i have wanted to find a way to recycle my old phones, and so far i haven't come up with much. you are lucky to have found a place."

Well, now you too can find a convenient place to drop off your antiquated mobile – here’s a few sites I found that have a search by zip-code option where you can just plug in your zip and they’ll direct you to the appropriate collection site.

Wirelessrecycling.com
They’ll help you find participating locations, plus they’ll tell you how you can start collecting cell phones for charity.

Wireless: The New Recyclable
Find participating places, plus get info on industry recycling efforts.

Earth 911, with the slogan of “making every day earth day” is by far the most comprehensive of the three listed here. Enter your zip code (in the top left corner) then click on the product or service you’re interested in (household hazardous waste, battery recycling – and a host of other information) and it pops up with things in that zip code (I tried it with three different zip codes in different states - it's pretty cool). Earth 911 not only gives information on recycling, but info on donating items for reuse and how to buy green alternatives in the future.

While turning your phone in to a collection site doesn't completely take care of the ultimate problem of waste (all those collected phones have to go somewhere) - as consumers, it is still our responsibility to do something with it, and turning it in is a much better alternative than tossing it in the rubbish bin.

Here's a previous post on what I think about consumer/manufacturer responsibility and e-waste legislation.