I think I’ve touched on cell phones once or twice in my column, and certainly in a couple of emails, but I’ve found some new information that might change our thinking.
The Brunswick Police Department can still re-use older cell phones by configuring them to only make calls to 911 and then distributing them free to people (usually women) at risk. We can also still leave them in the many collection boxes around the area provided by the Lioness/Lions Clubs. Those are reprocessed in Waldoboro and redistributed worldwide.
The new news is that there are several companies out there that will buy them back, seemingly at a higher value than the trade-ins will offer. I’ve looked at an outfit called Swappa, and another called EcoATM. Both will buy and sell older phones.
Swappa works through a mail-in process, where you tell them what you have, and they make an offer that depends on the phone and condition being as described. If it is, they send you money, and, if not, they either contact you or send it back.
EcoATM has evidently set up kiosks in several places, including most Walmart stores (but not currently the one in Brunswick), while their sister company, Gazelle, does the job via mail, apparently even including the cost of shipping. One report suggests that mail-in offers from Gazelle are typically higher than what is offered at the kiosks, but I have no real way to verify that claim. The EcoATM website has a list of Maine kiosk locations.
Also new is that Swappa, at least, wants the phones to be reset first to their factory specs. Fortunately, that is easily done, and the instructions for whatever phone you have are on the Web. Just do a search on “reset [whatever type of phone you have]”. You will also need to know whether your older phone is tied to a specific carrier, or is unlocked via its SIM card. You can check with your carrier, if you don’t recall. Newer models are generally all unlocked, from what I can see.
I was surprised at how much these groups actually offer for some older phones, and how inexpensive their newer ones are, if you really need to upgrade. I think that says we really don’t need to update them as often as our society tends to do, and a better way would be to just continue to use them until they totally fail. The new 5G business, for example, leaves me cold, besides not yet really being there, from what I can tell. I personally cannot see well enough anymore to be trying to watch movies on a cell phone, and, like most older folks, my phone is not welded to my hip.
I often don’t even have it with me when I go out, and certainly don’t answer it when I’m in the car. I use it like a “POTS” line (Plain Old Telephone Service) that I can take with me if I’m waiting for an important call, or I might be needing to make a call while I’m out. When my carrier asks me what I want a phone to do, I confuse them no end when I truthfully declare “I want it to make phone calls”, although I also, on rare occasions use it to review an email, or to consult the GPS feature.
The Recycle Bin is a weekly column on what to recycle, what not to recycle, and why, in Brunswick. The public is encouraged to submit questions by email to brunsrecycleinfo@gmail.com. Harry Hopcroft is a member of the Brunswick Recycling and Sustainability Committee. This column is a product of his own research.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
