Technologies

How to Recycle Your Old Phones and Appliances for Free

Whether you’re tossing out an obsolete phone or a larger appliance like a washing machine, you have a few sustainable options.

If you’ve just upgraded a gadget, it might be tempting to shove the old one into a corner or toss it into a junk drawer. But what should you do once the e-waste starts piling up? Where do you go to dispose of your outdated tech?

Just because you don’t need your old phones and appliances doesn’t mean you should condemn them to your in-home gadget graveyard — or worse, the garbage. We all hang onto outdated tech for our own reasons, but there are also multiple ways to repurpose old devices for your smart home, using them as security cameras and more. Depending on the age and condition of your phone, you might even be able to get some cash back for it.

Whatever the tech, when it’s finally time to say goodbye, there’s a right way to dispose of your old gadgets — and there are a lot of wrong ways. We’ll show you which is which.

Before recycling your device, do this first

If you’re going to get rid of an old smartphone, make sure its data has been properly wiped before you sell or donate it. Back up anything you want off the device — photos, videos, songs — and then perform a factory reset.

Where to recycle phones and appliances

Here are the best places to recycle, repurpose or give new life to your old technology. Some locations will take not only small devices such as phones, but also large appliances such as washing machines and exercise bikes.

Best Buy

Best Buy accepts a wide range of tech products and generally takes three items per house per day. Specifics may vary depending on where you live, but you can check with the state-specific recycling information dropdown menu on the site.

Best Buy also offers a haul-away option for larger appliances such as TVs, dishwashers, freezers, microwaves, treadmills and exercise bikes. If you’ve ordered a new product, Best Buy will take away your old one for recycling. There’s also a stand-alone haul-away option that costs $200. You can have two large items hauled away and an unlimited number of smaller items, with some exceptions.

What you can recycle: Best Buy can take TVs, cables and chargers, media players, projectors, laptops, hard drives, webcams, cellphones, calculators, radios, landlines, headsets, vacuums, fans, ink and toner cartridges, alarm clocks, speaker systems, e-readers, video game consoles, memory cards, camcorders, digital cameras and GPS devices.

Staples

Office supply store Staples also offers free recycling options for old technology. Staples accepts up to seven items per customer per day. The company also has haul-away options, driver pickup and pallet pickup, and prepaid address labels available.

What you can recycle: Staples can recycle accessories, adapters, cables, computers, cordless and mobile phones, digital cameras, laptops, routers, tablets, webcams, ink and toner and other office tech items.

Home Depot

Home Depot has an explainer on its website about how to safely dispose of dead batteries, old paint, electronics and other items, as well as tips for upcycling and repurposing. According to RecycleStuff.org, the services are drop-off only for residential customers.

What you can recycle: According to RecycleStuff.org, Home Depot accepts household alkaline batteries (AA, AAA, C, D, 9V), lithium-ion batteries, nickel-cadmium batteries, rechargeable household batteries, cell phones and LED light bulbs.

US Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA doesn’t handle recycling and drop-offs the same way other businesses do but it does have a handy guide that makes it easier to get the information you need. The EPA’s directory breaks down donation and recycling by electronic device, company name, logo and any additional details.

What you can recycle: Again, the EPA’s directory links you out to specific companies and their policies but according to the list you can recycle and donate mobile devices, PCs and TVs, imaging equipment and supplies.

Electronics Take-Back Coalition

Like the EPA, Electronics Take-Back Coalition makes it easy to find manufacturer take-back programs in the US. You can browse more than 25 companies’ take-back program summaries, including Acer, Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Panasonic and Sony.

The Electronics Take-back Coalition doesn’t handle the recycling but it can direct you to the proper resource for your needs.

What you can recycle: Depending on the company, you can find places to turn in cameras, computers, DVD and VHS players, iPads, iPhones, keyboards, mice, monitors, printers, smartphones and TVs.

Smartphone Recycling

Smartphone Recycling lets you print a free FedEx shipping label or request a recycling kit. Ship your old smartphone and you might even get paid, depending on the device’s condition and age. Smartphone Recycling accepts devices in bulk, so you have to ship a minimum of 10. Depending on how long you’ve been hoarding phones, you might meet this quota on your own. If not, check with friends and family and make it a group effort.

What you can recycle: Smartphone Recycling accepts Apple Watches, cell phones, iPads, iPhones, iPods, MacBooks, smartphones and tablets, and batteries attached or installed in devices.

EcoATM

EcoATM gives you a price estimate for your old phone that you can lock in on the mobile app using your old device’s IMEI number. EcoATM will ask a few questions about your device (brand, model, memory, carrier and condition) before generating a quote. From there, you can visit one of the organization’s kiosks at Dollar General, Kroger and Walmart.

What you can recycle: EcoATM can help with Google Pixel phones, iPhones, LG phones and tablets, MP3 players, Motorola phones, Samsung smartphones and tablets, and ZTE phones. You can also recycle chargers and cellular accessories like cases, but you won’t be paid for them.

Recycling for Charities

Recycling for Charities accepts technology donations but gives a percentage of the device’s value to the charity of your choosing. Scroll through a directory of charities, select one, enter the required information and click donate. Charities receive anywhere between 25 cents and $100 from your items.

What you can recycle: Digital cameras, iPhones, iPods, Palm Pilots, PDAs, wireless cell phones and corresponding batteries, and wireless pagers.

Call2Recycle

Call2Recycle is a battery-focused recycling program. The organization offers drop-off options at Home Depot, Lowe’s and Staples, and shipment boxes for batteries and cell phones. Drop-offs are free but recycling kits and shipment boxes cost between $45 and $115, depending on the size.

What you can recycle: Rechargeable batteries such as Lithium Ion, Nickel Cadmium, Nickel Metal Hydride, Nickel Zinc and Small Sealed Lead Acid weighing up to 11 pounds. Call2Recycle also accepts single-use batteries such as AA, AAA, 9V, C, D and button cell batteries weighing up to 11 pounds. The organization also accepts cell phones and their corresponding batteries regardless of size, make, model or age.

For more information, check out five things you can recycle (and five things you can’t), the right way to recycle plastic and the dos and don’ts of recycling metal cans.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for May 14, #233

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 233, for May 14.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

When you start seeing obvious last names in Connections: Sports Edition, you might think it’s an easy grouping of four. But today, there are eight names, so you need to know how they relate in order to put them in the right groups. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app, but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Show me how.

Green group hint: Numbers for outfielders, etc.

Blue group hint: City of Brotherly Love.

Purple group hint: Not Johnny or Billy, but…

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Teach.

Green group: Baseball fielding stats.

Blue group: Current Philadelphia sports stars.

Purple group: Jimmy ____

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is teach. The four answers are coach, drill, instruct and manage.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is baseball fielding stats. The four answers are assist, error, fielding percentage and putout.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is current Philadelphia sports stars. The four answers are Barkley, Harper, Hurts and Maxey.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Jimmy ____. The four answers are Butler, Garoppolo, Graham and Rollins.

Technologies

VPNSecure Customers Discover Their Lifetime Subscriptions Were Canceled

The new owner of VPNSecure said it didn’t know about the lifetime deals when it bought the VPN provider two years ago.

Lifetime means lifetime. Except when it doesn’t. That has been the dilemma of some VPNSecure customers, whose lifetime subscriptions were canceled by the new owners of the VPN provider — without the customers being told in advance that the subscriptions would end.

A Reddit user posted a copy of a message they said they received from VPNSecure’s new owner. In that message, the company tells customers that it did not know about the lifetime deals when it purchased the company in May 2023.

A VPN, or virtual private network, encrypts your internet traffic and masks your IP address, which can make your physical location detectable. A VPN enables you to keep your online activity private and trick apps and websites into thinking you’re in a different state or even country. For an in-depth look at VPNs, check out CNET’s guide to everything you need to know about VPNs and how they work.

In its email to customers, VPNSecure outlined the situation regarding the lifetime deals. The email said that the owner bought «the technology, domain, and customer database-but not the liabilities. Unfortunately, the previous owner did not disclose that thousands of Lifetime Deals (LTDs) had been sold through platforms like StackSocial.»

According to the email, the company deactivated accounts that had been dormant for six months or more, then later canceled all the lifetime deals as of April 28.

In the email, VPNSecure said that its «resources were strained by these LTD accounts» that «provide no sustaining income to help us improve and maintain the service.»

A representative for VPNSecure did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Customers are not happy

Several miffed customers weighed in with angry comments on Trustpilot.

«I had bought a ‘lifetime’ subscription a few years ago,» one person wrote. «Horrible new owners come in and cancel everything claiming ignorance. Either they’re idiots or they’re scammers — not sure which is worse.»

In response to customer reactions, VPNSecure is offering discounted new subscriptions to users whose lifetime deals were canceled. They can pay $1.87 for a month (instead of $9.95), $19 for one year (instead of $79.92), or $55 for three years (instead of $107.64). The deals are available until May 31, according to the email that was posted on Reddit.

Technologies

Coming Soon to Apple Devices: Brain Control Accessibility Features

A standard for brain implants that would allow disabled people to control devices such as iPhones and the Apple Vision Pro could be available for developers this year.

Apple is making progress on a standard for brain implant devices that can help people with disabilities control devices such as iPhones with their thoughts. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, Apple has plans to release that standard to other developers later this year.

The company has partnered with Synchron, which has been working with other companies, including Amazon, on ways to make devices more accessible. Synchron makes an implant called a Stentrode that is implanted in a vein on the brain’s motor cortex. Once implanted, the Stentrode can read brain signals and translate that to movement on devices including iPhones, iPads and Apple’s Vision Pro VR headset.

As we saw last year, a patient with ALS testing the Synchron technology was able to navigate menus in the Vision Pro device and use it to experience the Swiss Alps in VR. The technology could become more widely available to people with paralysis. The company has a community portal for those interested in learning about future tests.

Synchron has also been working on ways to use the interface with ChatGPT.

Effects on accessibility

Although Apple is planning to release its standards, it may be a while before the kinds of technology made by Synchron and Elon Musk’s brain-interface company Neuralink reach a mass audience of those who need it.

«It’s important to keep in mind that while amazing medical interventions are becoming possible, the timeline for full mainstream adoption of people with severe mobility disabilities is still long, and we should maintain a focus on ensuring that we are making products accessible now,» said Bob Farrell, vice president for solution delivery and accessibility at Applause, a technology testing company that recently released an accessibility report.

Farrell said that Apple has helped lead a shift in the tech industry to make products available to a wider audience of those with disabilities.

«Apple recognized the social and business benefit to building inclusive products, and we’re seeing an uptick in other industries focusing on inclusivity, like gaming,» he said. «Game companies are now competing for accessibility awards and driving innovation forward in an industry that has traditionally argued it’s exempt from legal requirements around accessibility — yet demand for inclusion remains, and companies are innovating in this area.»

Making products truly inclusive, Farrell said, takes a lot of work and commitment and, Apple aside, not all of them invest and prioritize or seek out input from people with disabilities.

«We encourage more organizations to involve people with disabilities at every stage of the product-development lifecycle, from early conceptual research to both formal and informal usability testing with assistive technologies,» Farrell said.

«We’d also encourage more companies, especially those leading in consumer tech, to collaborate with accessibility experts and the disability community from the outset. Real-world feedback and testing can uncover critical usability issues that internal teams and automated tools will miss,» he said.

Other Apple announcements

Separately, Apple announced a set of new accessibility features it plans to roll out later this year. They include:

Accessibility Nutrition Labels in the App Store will show accessibility features in games and other apps.
A Magnifier tool for Mac, similar to the one available in iOS.
Braille Access through compatible braille devices allowing for note taking, access to more books and live captions for braille displays.
An Accessibility Reader mode across iOS, Mac and Vision Pro.
Live Captions for Apple Watch.
Enhanced View on Vision Pro.
Other features and updates are listed on its blog.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is on May 15.