{From Amy: I’m excited to introduce you to a discard & donate resource we recently learned about! Alexandra from Second Wave Recycling is our guest blogger today. She will introduce us to a wonderful cell phone recycling opportunity. Many of you have old cell phones laying around & you wonder what to do about them. They are outdated technology, yet you are sure that someone, somewhere can use them… so you hold onto them. Now, you have a new option…}

We’re one month into the New Year! In my home that means it’s annual “clean out the junk drawers” month.

When I clean out my junk drawers I make several piles: What to keep, what to toss, what to shred, what to donate, etc. The items that used to consistently make it into my I’ll-deal-with-it-later pile were my old cell phones. What do you do with those things, anyway? You can’t throw them away, but where do you recycle them? Oh sure, I could have sold them for cash at one point but now they’re all so old the value wouldn’t be worth the effort.

It’s a predicament, really.

So I had saved five cell phones over then past ten years (sound familiar?) until I found SecondWave Recycling. SecondWave Recycling is a company that helps non-profits raise funds through the collection and recycling of cell phones. It’s simple, really. You just go to their website, click on Donate Your Phone or Sell Your Phone and follow the prompts to send in your phone, free of charge! When you donate your phone the wholesale value of that phone is donated to the charity of your choice. When you sell your phone $1 is donated to the charity of your choice. And that dollar comes from SecondWave, not from your earnings.

Not only does SecondWave help non-profits but it also helps the environment by keeping cell phones out of the landfill and upcycling precious metals that would otherwise be mined from our earth. According to the EPA over 10 million cell phones are stockpiled in American homes, creating 50,000 tons of potentially hazardous waste.  SecondWave helps turn this waste into funds to help those in need.

I liked the concept so much that I actually work for them now! It’s a great, family-owned company that wants to help non-profits and also the environment. So do yourself, the environment and your junk drawer a favor and send in your phone today!