EcoATM Promises to Make Recycling Electronics Easier

Dealing with electronic waste, or e-waste, the colorful term for electronic products that have reached the end of their "useful" life such as old TV's, computers, cell phones, e-readers, and mp3 players, is a headache. These carriers of toxic chemical such as lead, cadmium, and brominated plastics, should not, in a perfect world, be tossed in the trash.

But getting rid of them the 'correct' way differs drastically from your typical curbside recycling.

In New York City, for example, to recycle home electronics one must wait for special seemingly randomly selected 'electronics recycling days' to haul said e-waste to a location that is not necessarily home adjacent. Miss the day or feel less than motivated to trek five miles via train and bus to your e-waste drop-off location and said electronics will likely continue to clutter a home that is only slightly larger than a bed. It's no wonder, then, that so many New Yorkers take advantage of the law and simply toss their e-waste in the trash. It's legal until 2015, though not really desirable,  for NYC residents to deal with their mountain of used cell phones, televisions and computers simply by hauling them to the curb.

Similarly, although certain retailers do take electronic waste - Staples, for example, takes most used print cartridges, Radio Shack, will handle your old batteries - these are services that either aren't well advertised or to which most consumers are blissfully unaware. Yet, figuring out which stores take what and how best to get it to them becomes still another hurdle in getting rid of something that was far easier to purchase.

Stepping into that void is the Coinstar (of coin counting fame) funded EcoATM. Hoping to make a dent into the millions if not billions of small home electronics, such as first generation iPhones, and leveraging market research data that says most Americans would rather recycle their electronics than throw it out, EcoATM serves to act much like the ubiquitous Coinstar (who also own Redbox DVD rental) machines. The automated recycling station takes small electronic devices, assesses their secondary market value, and then gives the customer a choice of trade-up coupon, gift card, cash, or of making a charitable contribution to a selected charity.

Customers receive payment for recycling their electronics, while EcoATM either sells the electronics on the secondary market or recycles it (though the latter can be problematic).In both cases it makes sure to destroy the original user's data that was stored on the phone.

First  piloted in Southern California and Nebraska, the kiosks are poised to go nation wide over the next few years.

While this won't do much for larger electronics - the machine is geared towards small hand-held electronics only - or for the really old electronics that have been gathering dusts in our drawers for years (sorry Motorola Startac) - it is a step towards getting this stuff out of our landfills.

It doesn't, however, tell us what to do with the power cords.