TECH BYTE: Spring Cleaning Your Tech Products

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Spring cleaning isn’t just for cleaning out your closet.

If too many of your old gadgets – from cell phones to tablets – are collecting dust, why not recycle them?

Best Buy says it wants to make it easier than ever.

The electronics chain is introducing a new program nationwide, allowing you to recycle all of your old devices by mail.

It’s great if you don’t live close to a Best Buy store, but still want to help the environment.

Starting this month, you can order a prepaid technology recycling box from BestBuy.com.

You have two to pick from. A small box will cost about $23 and carry up to six pounds of electronics.

A medium box is about $30, and can hold up to 15 pounds of tech.

Once the box is delivered to your home, fill it up with the gadgets you’d like to get rid of, then ship it using UPS.

You can even schedule a home pick-up too through Best Buy’s haul-away services.

If you’d prefer to go to a store in person, Best Buy might even give you a gift card for your old products, depending on the item.

You can recycle up to three items per household there per day.

If you’d rather go online, you can make some money off your old tech, by selling it on websites like eBay, Decluttr.com, Buybackworld.com, and Itsworthmore.com.

With all of these options, there’s no reason not to recycle your unused tech on this Earth Month or year-round.

Another important tip – Before you resell or recycle anything, don’t forget to wipe all the memory from your gadgets to keep your data safe.