Recycling used electronics is pretty important – arguably more important than recycling paper and plastic. E-waste is loaded with toxic heavy metals such as mercury and cadmium. Such chemicals are bad for the environment, but worse for the impoverished citizens of developing countries who all too often need to earn their living by crudely mining valuable metals out of our discarded computers, TVs and cell phones.

It’s a good thing, then, that Radio Shack is offering some decent incentives to recycle your old iPod. They are starting a program which allows customers to register their obsolete gadgets and ship them (pre-paid, of course) to a collecting location, where they make sure your item is in the condition you said it was. If so, you get a Radio Shack gift certificate (hey, I never said there was nothing in it for them). You can appraise your item online.

Radio Shack is certainly not the first to come up with this recycling model; others are doing very similar things. And seeing as getting a bit of cash for an old cell phone makes so much more sense than throwing it into a bin with banana peels and coffee filters, this ecogeek is optimistic about e-recycling becoming the norm.

Via GoodCleanTech
Image via Radio Shack

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