#recycle electronics

[bluntzhou]

How to Quickly Sell Your Phone with Phoneto™: Best Platforms for Instant Cash

In today's tech-driven world, phones quickly become outdated, and many of us, including myself, often find ourselves with old devices just sitting around. Throwing them away feels wasteful, and selling them seems like a hassle. But if you're looking for a fast and simple way to sell your phone, this guide highlights the best platforms for getting instant cash offers.

Why Sell Your Old Phone Sooner?

The smartphone market depreciates rapidly, with old models losing value quickly. For instance, Decluttr data shows that a new iPhone can lose up to 40%-60% of its value in the first year. The iPhone 14, released in 2023, saw its price drop by 42% within nine months. That’s why selling your phone sooner ensures you get the best possible price.

Moreover, phones degrade over time, with battery life shortening and screens wearing down, which lowers their resale value. Whether you want to maximize your return or reduce waste, selling your phone sooner rather than later is always the best option.

The Environmental Impact

The world is facing a growing e-waste problem, with over 50 million tons of electronic waste generated globally each year. Only 20% of that is properly recycled, according to a UN report. Selling your phone doesn’t just benefit your wallet—it also contributes to reducing e-waste. As more people become environmentally conscious, selling used phones to recycling agencies has become a popular choice, especially in regions like Europe and the US, where environmental awareness is growing. By selling your phone, you help protect the planet and support the circular economy.

Top Platforms for Quick Cash Offers

While platforms like eBay or Craigslist are well-known, they can take time and effort, with price negotiations and unreliable buyers. If you need quick cash, here are faster and more reliable options:

Physical Buyback Stores Retailers such as Apple Store, Best Buy, and Verizon offer fast in-store evaluations and instant cash or store credit. Apple’s 2023 Trade-In Program allows you to trade in an iPhone 13 for nearly $400, which you can apply toward a new device. It's a quick, hassle-free option for those upgrading their phones.

Online Buyback Platforms If you'd rather avoid leaving the house, online buyback platforms are convenient for getting an instant quote and quick payment.

Gazelle: Known for fast transactions, Gazelle offers an average processing time of under 48 hours. Once you ship the phone, you can receive payment quickly via PayPal or check.

Decluttr: As one of the largest recycling platforms, Decluttr provides free shipping and competitive quotes, with users averaging around $250 for a typical device.

Phoneto: A rising star in the buyback market, Phoneto offers instant quotes and fast payouts. Users have praised its intuitive interface and competitive pricing, with some earning up to $350 for newer models like the iPhone 13. After you ship your phone for free, Phoneto ensures payment within 48 hours.

Carrier Buyback Programs Carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile offer trade-in programs that can be completed within minutes. These programs are ideal if you’re upgrading your phone, with Verizon's program offering up to $1,000 in credit for top models.

Second-Hand Marketplaces Although slower, platforms like Swappa are becoming popular in 2024, offering secure transactions. Unlike eBay, Swappa provides protection for both buyers and sellers, making it a safer option for private sales. With 30% growth in transactions in 2023, average sale prices for phones range from $250 to $400 depending on the condition.

Prepping Your Phone for Sale

Before selling, protect your data by:

Restoring factory settings

Removing your SIM card

Unlinking iCloud or Google accounts

Deleting personal apps and data

These steps not only ensure your privacy but can also help you fetch a higher price for your device.

Conclusion

Selling your phone can be fast and easy with the right platform. Whether you choose a physical store, online buyback platform, or carrier program, there are plenty of reliable options for turning your old phone into cash. In 2024, platforms like Phoneto, Gazelle, and carrier buyback programs offer some of the best ways to get instant offers while contributing to sustainability.

[reasonsforhope]

"Scientists have developed a way to dramatically reduce the cost of recycling certain electronic waste by using whey protein.

Their method allows for the easy recovery of gold from circuit boards at a cost of energy and materials amounting to 50 times less than the price of the gold they recover—these are the numbers that big business likes to see.

Indeed, the potential for scalability depends on this sort of cost savings, something traditional e-waste recycling methods just can’t achieve.

Professor Raffaele Mezzenga from ETH Zurich has found that whey protein, a byproduct of dairy manufacturing, can be used to make sponges that attract trace amounts of ionized gold.

Electronic waste contains a variety of valuable metals, including copper, cobalt, and gold. Despite gold’s public persona as being either money or jewelry, thousands of ounces of gold are used in electronics every year for its exceptional conductive properties.

Mezzenga’s colleague Mohammad Peydayesh first “denatured whey proteins under acidic conditions and high temperatures, so that they aggregated into protein nanofibrils in a gel,” writes the ETH Zurich press. “The scientists then dried the gel, creating a sponge out of these protein fibrils.”

The next step was extracting the gold: done by tossing 20 salvaged motherboards into an acid bath until the metals had dissolved into ionized compounds that the sponge began attracting.

Removing the sponge, a heat treatment caused the gold ions to aggregate into 22-carat gold flakes which could be easily removed.

“The fact I love the most is that we’re using a food industry byproduct to obtain gold from electronic waste,” Mezzenga says. In a very real sense, he observes, the method transforms two waste products into gold. “You can’t get much more sustainable than that!” ...

However the real dollar value comes from the bottom line—which was 50 times more than the cost of energy and source materials. Because of this, the scientists have every intention of bringing the technology to the market as quickly as possible while also desiring to see if the protein fibril sponge can be made of other food waste byproducts.

E-waste is a quickly growing burden in global landfills, and recycling it requires extremely energy-intensive machinery that many recycling facilities do not possess.

The environmental value of the minerals contained within most e-waste comes not only from preventing the hundreds of years it takes for them to break down in the soil, but also from the reduction in demand from new mining operations which can, though not always, significantly degrade the environments they are located in.

[Note: Absolutely massive understatement, mining is incredibly destructive to ecosystems. Mining is also incredibly toxic to human health and a major cause of conflict, displacement, and slavery globally.]

Other countries are trying to incentivize the recycling of e-waste, and are using gold to do so. In 2022, GNN reported that the British Royal Mint launched an electronically traded fund (ETF) with each share representing the value of gold recovered from e-waste as a way for investors to diversify into gold in a way that doesn’t support environmentally damaging mining.

The breakthrough is reminiscent of that old fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin who can spin straw into gold. All that these modern-day, real-life alchemists are doing differently is using dairy and circuit boards rather than straw."

-via Good News Network, July 19, 2024

[saywhat-politics]

By Susan Campbell

Published: Jan. 10, 2025 at 2:07 PM MST

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — We use a lot of electronics. We upgrade often, and e-waste is piling up. If Santa upgraded any of your electronics this holiday season, it’s time to get rid of the old stuff, but you don’t want to toss it in the trash.

“There’s only about 12% of electronics inside of our landfills, but they make up 70% of the harmful toxins inside of our landfills,” said Brian Dyer of Westech Recyclers in Phoenix.

The e-waste recycler collects old electronics to be reused and recycled. “We take close to six million pounds of electronics every year,” Dyer said.

Everything is sorted. If it still works, it may be resold. “They’ll end up back on the market,” Dyer said, pointing to a dozen laptops being tested in the warehouse. “While they may not be brand new, they will be new to that person that is picking them up through our retail store.”

If an item cannot be resold, it’s taken apart. Workers can dismantle a computer in minutes, pulling apart every piece, down to the last screw.

“The boards that are inside of your computer will have palladium and gold on them, small amounts, but those are precious metals that we will never get back if they go to a landfill, so we will take those in, pull those boards off, send them to a responsible recycler downstream and they will harvest those materials back out of the boards,” Dyer explained.

When e-waste is recycled, data is destroyed to protect any information that used to be on those old devices. “Anytime that we can reuse something, or reduce it and recycle it, is really best for the environment,” Dyer said.

Westech is hosting several collection events. The company also offers free pickups for ten items or more.

[marlynnofmany]

Me: "Murderbot starts tomorrow. Can't wait. Gotta think about something else."

Sidebar Ad: *selling shoes*

Me: "Oh wow, those look like something they'd wear on Preservation!"

(They really do.)

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Battery waste and kitchen foil create nanocatalyst for CO₂ to methane fuel conversion

Battery waste is a serious environmental problem: It contains substances that pose a threat to both human health and ecosystems. At the same time, however, batteries also contain valuable materials such as nickel, which we need—for example, for the production of new batteries. Better recycling methods for batteries are therefore urgently required. At TU Wien, researchers have developed a process that can be used to recover nickel from spent nickel-metal hydride batteries. But that's not all: from this battery waste and used aluminum foil, such as that used in the kitchen, it was possible to produce a nanocatalyst that converts CO2 into valuable methane. In this way, one can reduce the waste problem on the one hand and at the same time obtain a climate-neutral fuel. Their paper is published in the journal Green Chemistry.

Read more.

[mindblowingscience]

Transforming base materials into gold was one of the elusive goals of the alchemists of yore. Now Professor Raffaele Mezzenga from the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at ETH Zurich has accomplished something in that vein. He has not of course transformed another chemical element into gold, as the alchemists sought to do. But he has managed to recover gold from electronic waste using a byproduct of the cheesemaking process. Electronic waste contains a variety of valuable metals, including copper, cobalt, and even significant amounts of gold. Recovering this gold from disused smartphones and computers is an attractive proposition in view of the rising demand for the precious metal.

Continue Reading.

[ewasteblog]

E-Waste 101

(Image by Morten B.)

E-waste, simply put, is short for electronic waste. The U.S. EPA synonymies e-waste with "e-scrap" and "end-of-life electronics" as well. Typical examples of e-waste include computers, electrical equipment, phones, and headphones.

But why the separate title? Why can't e-waste just be labeled as regular waste? Well, because most electronics have two unique attributions: being very bad for the environment, and being incredibly hard to recycle. This is exactly what the Oxford Dictionary details about e-waste, including in the definition, "typically containing environmentally hazardous substances and requiring special treatment for safe disposal or recycling."

These attributions are the cause for a very important questions: what does e-waste actually do to the environment? As described by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, about 6.9 million tons of e-waste is generated in just the U.S., and if not recycled properly, will lead to hazardous materials such as battery acid, lead, and mercury leaching into local soil and groundwater.

Unfortunately, talking about how electronics are recycled is heavily complicated and heavily boring. However, I can surely talk about how little e-waste is actually recycled. According to the WHO (not the band), less than a quarter of e-waste was properly documented and recycled globally. A QUARTER... GLOBALLY. It doesn't necessarily matter how e-waste is recycled if it ain't being recycled in the first place.

Now that the problem is properly in context, it's time to consider one of the biggest contributors to e-waste, one that will shape future research and put a spotlight on big tech companies. That contributor is a little concept called planned obsolescence.

Planned obsolescence, as described by Wendy Hamblet in the Salem Press Encyclopedia of Science, is designing and building a product in a way that ensures the owner seeks to replace it after a certain amount of time. This concept applies to all products, but lately the term is most associated with electronic devices.

Given the definition has an implicit incentive structure to make a product last for less time in order to sell more products, it's no shock that this concept can be seen in most big technology companies who sell highly valuable (expensive) devices. The biggest offenders are companies that make a new product every single year (cars, phones, computers), subsequently arbitrarily removing support for an older product (just look at Apple for an example).

As stated previously, planned obsolescence will be a major focal point when analyzing tech companies, comparing what they say about being environmentally friendly, versus what they actually do with their products and advertising.

[dullahandyke]

Fun exciting plural moment this morning my headmates were mad at me bcos they wanted me to get up but I kept snoozing my alarm for several hours. Not actually that mad but I did wake up properly and then LOL at the memory of someone going WAKE UP DIPSHIT while i turned off my 8am alarm and went back to sleep

[naomiknight-17]

Can I just say I went out TWICE today and I can't remember the last time I did that

[foxyou-too]

Daniel Lepik

[solus-official]

what are these e-waste stores i keep hearing about??

E-waste stores are basically recycling and/or thrift stores for electronics and computer stuffs You can walk in (or log in if it's online based) and look through a fuck ton of various electronics that are being recycled instead of thrown in a dump. It's a very cheapo way to get some actually good electronics! Downside is, cause it's all stuff that would normally go to the dump, there's no garuntee that whatever you're looking at is in good condition. Most laptops usually have damaged screens or blown speakers or smthng like that. Be prepared to fix whatever you buy from an E-Waste store! I dunno where you live so i can't really suggest anything specific to you, but a good online store for the NA area is FreeGeek. Personally I don't get much from them but they're a good Non-Profit for electronics recycling. I personally get stuff from a local mom and pop shop, they don't have an online presence and also don't get many customers. They know me well enough that I tend to get some stuff for free lmao, but I usually return enough stuff to them to pay it all off

[reasonsforhope]

I'm worried about electronic waste, e-waste recycling, and such loss of resources.

That's real. For what it's worth, I think it's something we're going to get a LOT better at. The raw materials - and even partially depleted materials that can be downcycled - are too valuable to be left forever.

Tip for anyone worried about e-waste or looking to be more environmentally conscious: Whenever I have something electronic that dies (this includes batteries, power cords, string lights, and vapes), I stick it in an out-of-the-way drawer, and then once every year or two, I bring it all to either an e-waste recycling place or an e-waste disposal place (which, my understanding is most e-waste disposal places do a lot of materials reclamation as well, though if I'm wrong someone please correct me). I just look online to find a place.

Sometimes it's a bit of a drive, but it's so worth it. I encourage others to do the same!

Anyway, here's some headlines about e-waste to hopefully lift your spirits:

^That's Western Australia, not Washington state.

[itsgerges]

Best Regards Can Young Interference Be A Model For The Solar System Design? https://app.box.com/s/m5knmtma5f0vejev6x17f16idai9yurx or https://app.box.com/s/e9m3r3e9x2o3ncik9xznihwdh2581bsv or https://www.tumblr.com/itsgerges/781095009302740992/can-young-interference-be-a-model-for-the-solar?source=share or https://gerges2022.livejournal.com/254918.html

Paper argument Young Interference Is A Model For The Solar System Design

The Argument Explanation The argument is explained by answer the following 12 questions 1 Can The Space Be Created By Light Beam Energy? 2 How Can Young Interference Be A Model For The Solar System Design? 3 What Are The Useful Results We Get If (Young Interference Can Be A Model For The Solar System Design)? 4 What Proves We Have For The Idea Tells (Young Interference Can Be A Model For The Solar System Design)? 5 How Can The Coherence Of Light Be Occurred? 6 Can The Light Move Into The Past? 7 How Is Planet Formatted (Planet Formation Details)? 8 What problems are made by Young interference as a model for the solar system design? 9 Why Do We See The Bright Fringes As Planets? 10 Does Space Creation Need a speed 1.16 million km per second? 11 What's The Time Definition? 12 Can the solar system design be greater than (Young Interference)? Let's answer in following NOTICE I try to prove that (Young Interference Is A Model For The Solar System Design) in this proof I use many new facts I have discovered- but I don't explain any of these facts here- because all facts are explained and proved in the paper discussions. First Question Can The Space Be Created By Light Beam Energy? What Machine Can Use The Light Beam Energy To Create The Space? Young Interference uses two light beams for coherence of light- and this coherence produced the interference (bright fringes and dark fringes)- if we accept the space is similar to the dark fringes- that tells- the space can be produced by the coherence of light (If we put a small creature as ant inside a dark fringe this creature will see this dark fringe as space around it) Second Question How Can Young Interference Be A Model For The Solar System Design? Young Interference Is Consisted Of Bright Fringes And Dark Fringes And - if Young interference is a model for the solar system- that tells 1 We See The Bright Fringes As Planets (The Fringe Breadth Is Comparable With The Planet Diameter) 2 We See The Dark Fringes As These Planets Orbits (Space)- 3 The bright fringes order is typical to the solar planets distribution between the sun and Pluto 4 Planet velocity is defined based on its order because (V2=0.8 V1)- means- each planet velocity = (0.8) of its previous neighbor velocity (for example The Earth velocity 29.8 km/s x (0.8) = 24.1 km/s Mars velocity error 1%) – means- the order defines each planet velocity- that answers the question (why does planet orbit define its velocity?) NOW- let's compare between Young Interference and the solar system design 1 The planets distribution is typical to Young Interference-because- the greatest diameter planet "Jupiter" is found in the middle and the other planets diameters are decreased gradually on both sides typical to the fringes distribution in Young interference- 2 Please remember- I proved Mars original orbit was between Mercury and Venus and Mars had migrated to its current orbit by that the inner planets original order was (Mercury- Mars- Venus- The Earth) the diameters are decreased gradually from the Earth to Mercury typical to Young Interference (Also the outer planets diameters are decreased gradually from Jupiter to Pluto)- 3 If Young Interference can be used as a model for the solar system that means we see the bright fringes as planets (why? the answer is later) Third Question What Are The Useful Results We Get If (Young Interference Is A Model For The Solar System Design)? we get two useful results which are First result- this proves the conclusion tells (Light Can Move Into The Past)- which can enable us to create the time machine (explained later) Second result- This prove the conclusion (We See The Bright Fringes As Planets) which explain the observer effect on the observation results (explained later) (CONT) Gerges Francis Tawdrous +201022532292 Physics Department- Physics & Mathematics Faculty Peoples' Friendship university of Russia – Moscow

Curriculum Vitae https://www.academia.edu/s/b88b0ecb7c E-mail mrwaheid@gmail.com, mrwaheid1@yahoo.com gergesgerges@yandex.ru ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1041-7147 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/gergis.tawadrous VK https://vk.com/id696655587 Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/blog/itsgerges Researcherid https://publons.com/researcher/3510834/gerges-tawadrous/ Google https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2Y4ZdTUAAAAJ&hl=en Livejournal https://gerges2022.livejournal.com/profile Pocket https://getpocket.com/@646g8dZ0p3aX5Ad1bsTr4d9THjA5p6a5b2fX99zd54g221E4bs76eBdtf6aJw5d0?src=navbar

box https://app.box.com/s/47fwd0gshir636xt0i3wpso8lvvl8vnv Academia https://rudn.academia.edu/GergesTawadrous List of publications http://vixra.org/author/gerges_francis_tawdrous Slideshare https://www.slideshare.net/Gergesfrancis

[coridallasmultipass]

OMG IT WORKS, I WAS ABLE TO REPLACE THE STRAP WITH A SWATCH STRAP!!!!

Guys, it's been SO LONG since my cheap-ass generic/unbranded watch's strap started breaking, and I had to take off my favourite watch a WHILE ago (you can see the old strap in the bag is completely broken on both sides now, it just crumbled when I picked up my watch to measure it).

I had no clue how to shop for a replacement or which point to disassemble the old strap at! Turns out, it's Swatch compatible! So I went ahead and ordered the name brand Swatch strap for this size, and IT FITS. Well, the strap fits. The Swatch metal posts that hold the strap to the watch body were too thick by a hair and wouldn't slide in the metal watch body. Thankfully, the old posts in my watch were still good to use, since they were original to the watch.

I'm SO glad I can keep using my 2019 impulse purchase. I've already replaced the battery in it once, and now knowing how to replace a watch strap has been a really good skill to add to that. I hate throwing shit out when it stops working, I'd rather repair it, especially because this is a really cool and comfortable watch to me. Yeah it's hashtag retrowave aes, but it also uses a tally system with the LEDs for telling the time/date (as opposed to analog/digital), which is really cool and not something you see often. Also, with the new strap being leather - I know how to care for leather, and it will definitely last longer than the previous plastic that only lasted for a couple years of wear.

I'm so fucking excited.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

The robotics industry should be creating robots that could be reprogrammed and repurposed for other tasks once its life span is completed, University of Bristol and University of West England researchers have advised. The study, published by Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems, aims to challenge individuals working in the robotics industry and in academia to note the effect that their early work can have on the long-term use of a robotic system. With 80% of a robots environmental impact decided during the initial design phases of a product life-cycle, experts argue it is essential that researchers, designers and manufacturers understand the limitations of recycling an electronic product at the end of its life, and instead consider the other options possible to move products and the industry towards a sustainable life-cycle.

Read more.

[linktify-blog]

Repair Pencils

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