- We're surrounded by gadgets and screens.
Life in the 21st Century
is a constantly evolving cycle of technology.
The exciting and fun part is getting new gear,
but we should probably chat
a bit more about gadget end-of-life.
What do you do with your old tech?
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And this is one of those conversations
that's kind of tricky.
We're going to start with a broad overview,
but we hope this is a topic you take from a YouTube video,
and just think about the specific needs
of your own family gear.
If you haven't noticed,
we're on a bit of a spring cleaning kick
on the Reviews.org website, on our YouTube channel.
As we pick up new gadgets,
we have some choices to make on displacing older gadgets.
Older tech might not hold monetary value
as well as analog appliances used to back in the day.
Now, phones, tablets, consoles, computers, TVs, cameras,
there's so much compute power and capability in our home.
Immediately, we can look at markets to sell our old gear.
If it's still in good shape and it still works,
then there's someone out there that might want to buy it.
Sites like eBay or Swappa.
It's a little extra effort, but you can search.
You can see how much similar items have sold for,
and then you can try and score a little extra cash,
help subsidize your future electronics purchases.
Because I do so much work with phones,
right now the trend for things like smartphones
would be trade-in deals.
I'm a little wary of these amazing swap deals,
which tend to crank up the FOMO.
You don't want to miss out on the best value
for your old phone.
So a consumer might be encourage to upgrade
sooner than they really need to.
And instead of just owning and using a phone for a while,
we're constantly leasing new products
that devalue radically fast.
So then, the manufacturer hypes a trade-in deal,
and that keeps a customer hooked on one manufacturer instead
of shopping the best products for their needs.
But I digress.
I feel that might be worth a buyer beware video
in the future.
If you'd like to see something like that,
please comment down below.
Of course, you can also keep, gift,
and repurpose your old gear.
It's another thing that I don't get.
I really wish this idea would take off a bit more.
When people flip an old phone that still works,
I'm personally a big fan of keeping an old phone as a beater
or a weekender phone that you don't mind
it possibly getting messed up.
I went and got the brand new hotness
to show off to my friends for most of my work,
but then I also still have my old phone,
which is already set up how I like it,
when I wanna hit the beach
or go on a really aggressive hike.
Areas I might not wanna take my new, expensive phone
to possibly get messed up.
It's also a little less sexy,
but I think a number of families
should still do hand-me-downs.
Mom gets a new phone, and her old phone
goes to one of her kids.
Old phones and tablets have a lot of life
left in them as alternative gadgets,
media players, mobile gaming.
Even if you don't pop in a SIM card,
it's still a brilliant little pocket computer.
Ditto, old laptops and computers,
where I think it's always worth a couple calls
to a library or school.
Now, obviously, we're talking about stuff
that's still in decent condition.
Don't try and pawn off a 15-year-old,
dust-caked encrusted, entry-level Dell
like you're being so generous to your local library.
But when you've got the hardware, you can also experiment,
maybe build a little arcade machine, or a home media server.
You can make a better backup solution for family photos,
and maybe redo some of your cloud subscription costs,
or just make it a simpler digital photo frame.
Just something fun.
You get to tinker, learn a bit about what the hardware
can do, and the gear doesn't immediately
become landfill E-waste.
Basically, anything we can do to keep stuff out of landfills
as long as we possibly can.
But eventually, we have to look at that last step
where we really want to get this stuff
properly disposed of.
It's the trickiest to talk about broadly
because every area has different rules,
regulations, and resources.
Here in California, we pay taxes upfront
when buying electronics,
but that should make it easier to drop off
and recycle things like consoles and TVs.
My family has made several trips
to a city-run drop-off center for toxic materials
that absolutely should not go directly to landfill pickup.
And our rules at stores like Best Buy
are a little different for dropping off devices to recycle,
where we should pay fewer drop-off fees at the end-of-life
because we already paid a disposal tax
at the time of purchase.
All right, landing the plane on this video,
I grew up in the era
of reduce, reuse, recycle PSAs about plastic.
You know, Saturday morning cartoons taught us
that we could save the oceans just by cutting up
our soda can rings.
Radical!
Yeah, that wasn't really true back then for plastic.
And today, consumer electronics waste
is another beast of a challenge entirely.
I would humbly propose that we switch
from reduce, reuse, recycle
to repair, repurpose, and recycle.
Let's try to fix our gadgets as long as it makes sense
to repair them.
Then, let's see if we can find a second life,
or alternative use for the gadgets we own.
And only when we're out of options,
and we can't sell these devices to other people,
do we start looking at properly disposing of them.
It's just something to think about.
And hopefully, it's a conversation you can have
with family and friends.
We're all doing a little spring cleaning right now.
And increasingly, our tech should be a part
of that yearly strategy too.
And if you have any solid tips or resources you like to use
for your old gadgets, don't be shy.
Drop us those comments down below.
As always, thanks so much for watching,
for sharing these videos, subscribing to the channel.
For Reviews.org, I'm Juan Carlos Bagnell,
AKA, SomeGadgetGuy,
and I will catch you all on the next video.