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Recycle Your Electronics

To Re-Gift Or Not To Re-Gift, That Is The Question

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I think we’ve all debated this at one time or another. You just got a new iPad, gaming system or TV and now your old one is sitting in a closet, collecting dust, and you’re not sure if you should offer an old model to someone else. Re-gifting has gotten a bad rap over the years but when it comes to electronics, there are so many great reasons to pass them on.

Let me share a story with you. My children are now old enough to work a computer/tablet on their own. Frankly, I think children are equipped to do this straight from the womb but that’s a story for another time. Because my wife and I both use our computer for work, there isn’t a lot of time to share it between the four of us and we can’t afford to go out and get a brand new iPad.

Enter, Nana. My wife’s mom had an older model iPad she wasn’t using and asked if we wanted it. Because it was an original model, Apple stopped making updates for it which essentially made it useless for an adult’s needs. For a child, however, there are still a ton of educational apps that could be accessed without needing the new updates, making that old, useless iPad and brand new toy for the kids.

The point is, just because an old device or gaming system seems outdated or useless to you, it may be an amazing addition to someone else’s house. I say all this because a study presented to the Ontario Electronic Stewardship in 2011 claimed that 90% of Ontarians have unwanted electronic devices to dispose of. That just seems like a big waste to me when there are so many families in need. If you don’t have someone to give them to, you can look for a local Free-cycle group, find a charity, or go to RecycleYourElectronics.ca to find a drop off location close to your home.

Don’t wait until your gadgets are obsolete and unusable. Get them out of your house and into the hands of someone that can use them. Remember, electronics have no value when they are hiding under your bed! Add in the fact that re-gifting them helps ensure that fewer valuable materials such as gold, copper and other rare metals are taken out of the earth, and you have no reason not to pass them on.

Do you have any old electronics lying around your house that could maybe help a less fortunate family? Why are you holding on to them?

Disclosure: I was compensated for my participation in the #ok2regift program from the Ontario Electronic Stewardship, but this message is really important and I am 100% committed to helping the cause.

Ontario Electronic Stewardship

What’s Hiding Under Your Bed?

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Hey, you, what’s hiding under your bed? It’s not something that you get asked every day, is it? I can’t imagine how I would react if someone actually said it to me, although I’m sure I’d laugh it off awkwardly before rushing home to take a peek at what treasures lie underneath my double mattresses.

I decided to lift up the curtain and would have never guessed what I actually found under there. First, there is the lovely, if not completely beat up, Acer laptop picture above. That beauty gave up 5 solid years of internetting and I guess it chose to hide under the bed as its final resting place. Here is a short list of some of the other items I found under the bed.

– 3001 socks
– 1 Smartie
– 4 Pokemon cards (No EX’s)
– 1 used concert ticket (Foo Fighters)
– 6 miscellaneous things I didn’t recognize (See: wife)
– 1 random remote control (Device not found)
– 0 children (Phew!)
– $3.15 in change (WooHoo!)

As you can see, the haul was very random and in some cases very profitable. In the case of the Acer laptop and the random remote control, I knew exactly what to do. A couple weeks ago I talked about all of the old electronics I had found lying around my house, as part of a campaign with the Ontario Electronic Stewardship.

The goal of their #WhereAreYoursHiding campaign is to encourage everyone to go on a scavenger hunt in their houses and to dig up all the old, unused electronic devices they can find. Once you’ve collected everything, you can visit RecycleYourElectronics.ca and find out where your closest drop off point is.

Recycling your old electronics has many benefits. Not only do they contain valuable materials such as gold, copper and other rare metals, but by recycling them you ensure that fewer TV’s, computers, phones and other devices end up in our landfills. Plus, the electronics that are still deemed useful can go to families who can’t afford the newest technology.

If that hasn’t convinced you, I don’t know what will. That said, I have a challenge for you! Rummage through your house or have some fun and create a scavenger hunt list for you and the kids, and find as many old electronics as you can. Then head to RecycleYourElectronics.ca and drop them off at your nearest Drop-Off location. It’s as easy as that! I leave you with the new campaign video from the Ontario Electronic Stewardship.

Disclosure: I was compensated for my participation in the #WhereAreYoursHiding campaign. The message is important and you should all get off your butts and into action!

Ontario Electronic Stewardship

No, YOU Are Hoarding Electronics!

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We live in an interesting time right now. I can remember growing up in a house that a TV in the living room and that was it. Our phone hung from the wall with a long spindly cord attached to it and that was about the extent of the electronics in our possession.

Currently in my home I have 4 laptops, 5 TV’s, 3 iPhones, 2 VCR’s, 3 printers and a slew of other misfit electronics. Most of these items have been replaced but we’ve kept them lying around as if we are hosting a museum or hoping they will turn into a Transformer… I noticed the electronic heap while I was in my storage room, digging out the Christmas Halloween decorations, and decided to finally rid myself of the mess.

In the past I would have just thrown them all in the garbage but if blogging has taught me anything, it’s that someone has always come up with a creative way to deal with things. Sure enough, I found the Ontario Electronic Stewardship, who have developed a way for you to recycle your old electronics so that materials such as gold, copper and other rare metals can be reused and kept out of a landfill.

The cool part is that you can punch in your postal code on their Recycle Your Electronics page and it’ll give you a list of the registered drop off locations. Places like Best Buy, Staples and Future Shop are on board and have bins right inside their front doors to make the drop offs very easy.

I’m also going to use this as an opportunity to teach my kids more about recycling by having them search the house for more electronics and bringing them to the drop off with me to explain what it is that will happen to all our old devices. I think they’ll appreciate knowing that some of this stuff will be going to help families and kids who otherwise wouldn’t afford it. I’ll just have to explain why daddy is keeping the old looking original NES system.

Because I am curious, I’ll leave you with this question. How many unused electronics do you have hanging around in your house right now?

Here is a fun video from the Ontario Electronic Stewardship!

Disclosure: I was compensated for my participation in the #WhatsInYours campaign. The message is important and it actually got me off my butt and into action!