recycling
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Virgin Mobile starts recycling program
Not unlike Apple and Dell, Virgin Mobile USA is getting into the recycling business -- sort of. Their new program, announced yesterday, provides buyers of Virgin's prepaid phones with a prepaid envelope inside the box to return an old phone in. As part of its new partnership with ReCellular, your unwanted handsets, like the vintage Kyocera K9 or classic Motorola StarTAC, will be refurbished and then sold or donated. And so you won't feel so bad at the thought of someone else using last year's model, all the sale proceeds will go to helping homeless youth, which we're hoping will restore your faith a bit in phone donation programs. It should be noted though, Virgin isn't the only carrier being a good samaritan with what might be otherwise discarded devices -- Verizon and T-Mobile have also been spotted distributing mailers with new purchases.
Sony offering trade-in credit for your old laptop
While not quite as sweet a deal as getting a free computer for your rusty and bloodied old gun, Sony has still managed to one-up rival Apple's PC recycling program by actually offering you a cash incentive to bring in your used, non-Mac notebook when you go to purchase a new one from the Japanese electronics giant. Depending on your machine's capabilities, the company will give you anywhere from $23 (for a Pentium II-powered lappy) all they way up to $318 (for a Pentium 4 rig) as a trade-in credit towards a new Vaio, with Sony-brand laptops unsurprisingly fetching more loot than products from other manufacturers. Consumers interested in this deal can either bring their old gear to a Sony retail store or simply mail it in when they order online; as for us, we'll still be paying full price for our Sony products, because the CSR we spoke with just laughed and hung up when we asked how much they'd give us for our still-working Osborne.
Japan sees sharp decline in cellphone recycling
As cellphones become more than just communication tools, incorporating gaming, multimedia, and PIM features, consumers are growing more and more attached to their handsets -- which is leading to a sharp decline in the number of old phones being recycled. According to a 2005 survey by Japan's Telecommunications Carriers Association, respondents cited both nostalgia and concern over potential data leaks as the main reasons they're holding onto old phones, which helps explain the 30% drop in handsets recovered for recycling from 2003 to 2004. Security concerns are so high that some people are turning to crushing machines which punch a hole through the phone's circuit board, in full view of the customer, rendering it useless. Judging by some of the drawers full of old phones that we've seen right here in the US, this is probably not just a Japanese phenomenon, although a slew of new carriers entering that market next year could exacerbate what some see as a growing problem.[Via textually]
