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Hardware Technology

Best Buy Launches Recycle-By-Mail Program (cnet.com) 48

Posted by BeauHD from the stop-hoarding-your-e-waste dept.
For $30, you can ship Best Buy a prepaid box filled with up to 15 pounds of unwanted electronics. CNET reports: Starting this month, two sizes of prepaid boxes are available on the Best Buy website: a 9-by-5-by-3-inch container that can carry up to 6 pounds for $23, and a larger, 18-by-14-by-4-inch box that can carry up to 15 pounds for $30. Once you've filled it up with approved electronics, you can take the box to a UPS location or arrange for a pickup.

The recycling-by-mail program is the latest salvo in Best Buy's campaign to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. In April 2022, the company began offering a haul-away service that picks TVs, appliances and other products for recycling from customers' homes. You can also drop off unwanted electronics at Best Buy locations and trade in select merchandise for gift cards.
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Best Buy Launches Recycle-By-Mail Program More

Best Buy Launches Recycle-By-Mail Program

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  • You just thought your private data was going somewhere to die. Someone is going to gather up your pictures, your tax data, and anything else interesting you left lying around on your recycled goods.

    • So before you recycle them, break them more so they're unusable.

      • Are the people using this service thinking about that?

        I can drop my electronics off at a city site five days a week for free. And yes, I remove or break storage first.

        • The last time I recycled a computer at a Best Buy store, the website said that they would not accept it if the hard drive was still in it.

          • Are they coming to your house and checking what you put in the box?

            You think my Mom is going to wipe something she wants to recycle?

  • Also 0 dollars to put them in my regular trash. Best Buy should be paying me 30 dollars for the inconvenience of going through them.
  • Pretty sure the UPS trucks aren't zero carbon.

    • >"Pretty sure the UPS trucks aren't zero carbon."

      Um, yeah. How is this going to achieve anything with carbon emissions? Even if transport wasn't involved, there isn't anything reducing "carbon emissions" in this equation. Not like they are going to "recycle" or "reuse" a broken mp3 player, busted speaker, sun-damaged keyboard, defective Game Boy, or crappy amplifier.

      • It looks good on the ESG shareholder report. Look at the middle of the little banner on the bottom of the google search page, that is a downright lie. You can't be neutral if you have ever existed for a time on the planet.

  • some citys have free e-waste drop offs

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xlsior ( 524145 )
      Washington State has an e-cycling partnership with Goodwill, you can drop off any electronics (working or not) at any goodwill donation spot in the state.
      • That's a smart idea.
      • Even say, a 27" CRT television? It is a 'flat screen' so has extra glass making it 91 lbs. :/

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by xlsior ( 524145 )
          Yes -- I've dropped off a 27" Trinitron CRT TV myself no problem, along with a non-working 65" LCD TV. They will take any consumer electronics (TV, printers, monitors, computers, laptops, game consoles, stereos, car radios, scanners, phones, etc.)
          In our town Goodwill has multiple donation sites that are basically a large semi-truck stationed in the parking lots of some of the large grocery stores -- much more convenient than drive umpteen miles out of town to the dump, and they'll will take the e-waste at
    • well, that may be true, but a bunch of people don't live in cities... I mean, we live about 40 miles from a small city... I am certain that there are a bunch of peoplewith the same issues. Oh, and when I used to live in the city, you were required to have a dump sticker to use the dump, they wouldn't just let anyone in for free.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jiriw ( 444695 )

      In the EU we have a directive (the WEEE) that states all e-waste must be recycled. A few exapmles where I live: electronics retailers have to accept a comparable old/defect appliance i8n return, that the customer wants to have recycled, at a new sale at no extra charge and municipalities have free turn-in e-waste collection stations as part of their garbage disposal program.

  • This is getting tiresome. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Thursday April 06, 2023 @09:22PM (#63431830) Homepage
    You buy a product and once it is no longer of use trying to get rid of it is the same as trying to dispose of toxic waste. I bought a phone at Best Buy, had to change the battery (which they don't sell) - went in to recycle the old battery (since hey I bought the phone [and the included battery] there): 'We don't accept phone batteries'.

    Quite frankly the situation is getting to the point that retailers should be responsible for what they sell, including end of life disposal. Better yet make the manufacturers responsible for taking back their junk product that didn't last.

    I actually like the phone, but the battery was a dud.

    • Costs can be a pain especially with UPS batteries.

      • >"Costs can be a pain especially with UPS batteries."

        We don't have any problem with UPS batteries- which are pretty much all lead-acid. Almost 100% of lead acid batteries ARE actually recycled. The place we buy batteries from just picks up bad/dead ones from us at no cost when they drop off our order of new batteries. Now, was that cost built-in to the new batteries we are buying? I don't know. We aren't paying a core charge (like I do when I buy a car battery).

        • Agreed, Sealed Lead Acid in a UPS is not a problem, almost everyone that takes batteries will take them for recycling at no charge. Since they a) don't explode and b) have easily reusable metals. Phone batteries though - what a disaster.
    • yep, I have the same problem, old tech that is no longer supported an no where to recycle

  • E-Recycling is mostly a scam (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mattD1980 ( 8392211 ) on Thursday April 06, 2023 @09:35PM (#63431852)
    I used to take all my e-waste the recyclers, but found out that the vast majority of these e-recycle facilities are just businesses that scrape off the gold and other precious metals in the electronics and throw all the rest in the land fill, it's basically a scam. Maybe not all do this but if you find a e-waste facility and they don't take certain items like old CRT's TV's then its a scam. The reason they don't take CRT's is because there is nothing of value in them they can take.

    • > The reason they don't take CRT's is because there is nothing of value in them they can take.

      Some of them have a reasonable amount of lead in the glass. It's a matter of how much energy it's worth vs. the market price.

      Since Obama banned lead refining the price has gone up a bit.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by doug141 ( 863552 )

      Another scam that made the news was they'd accept electronics for a recycling fee, fill a rented warehouse with them and disappear, leaving the electronics in someone else's warehouse.

  • I'll stick with Staples free in-store recycling, they accept a large number of things:

    https://www.staples.com/deals/it-s-recycling-day-every-day/BI3000592

    and it doesn't cost anything.

    It's nice that they take the lead-acid batteries from various UPS units, I have several of those a year that
    get replaced. I've also recycles at least a half dozen computers and notebooks with them, but I ALWAYS
    remove any disk drives, they get recycled with a hammer, or turned into model railroad parts (RE magnets).

    As it is, I h
  • or does it ship directly to 3rd world country, while BB gets reimbursed by government?

  • 1) Your data will be harvested, no matter what the terms or conditions say (they'll do it offshore).
    2) It will most certainly not be sustainably reclaimed. Even the briefest look at those conditions existing RIGHT NOW related to e-waste reclamation suggests this is a joke.

    They make a profit; you get a clean conscience.

  • Do it yourself (Score:3, Informative)

    by amabaie ( 1481951 ) on Thursday April 06, 2023 @11:00PM (#63431982)
    Or, next time you are passing by Best Buy, drop them off for free. You're welcome.

  • Your hard drives before sending them away

  • This would be an interesting industry if China stops exporting rare earth materials. Recycling electronics for their rare earth metals and other byproducts might be cheaper in the not too distant future if we can't get imports. Mining them from our only rare earth mine in California will take years to ramp up any type of production. But if we could actually import tech junk we could "mine" those items.

    • That's why I collect dead hard drives and take the magnets out of them. They're useful for all sorts of things, and maybe someday I can sell them.

  • We have to pay THEM? (Score:3)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Friday April 07, 2023 @10:23AM (#63432770)

    Why would I pay them to take the stuff? Most municipalities have some kind of recycling program which usually means electronics a few times a year.
    As for data storage devices, pull them and use them for target practice. Oh, you live in a state where you can't do that? Sucks to be you.

  • for $0 (Score:3)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Friday April 07, 2023 @12:11PM (#63432982)

    For $0.00 you can just put your 15 lbs in the garbage and someone will come pick it up in a service for which you are already paying.

  • Most cities and counties have a disposal site or event for electronics, old prescriptions, and household toxic chemicals.
    Just ask around.

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