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Comment by blakesterz | Hacker News Reader

I have quite a pile of old phones and tablets in a cabinet. They're all broken in one way or another, I'm not sure what to do with them. This article is about things that work and are reasonably recent. They get refurbed and reused.

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You can still send non-functioning items back to Apple to be recycled if you want. You can take it an Apple store or go through the mail-in process. They tear them apart and salvage the parts.

Apple will even accept old official cases to properly dispose of them. Always an option when I am trading in an iPhone directly with them.

What is the proper way to dispose of a case? It's a hunk of plastic and maybe TPU or silicone. It goes in the trash.

People have given good suggestions, but don’t feel guilty throwing them in the trash. I know there is taboo to throw away prized possessions, but phones are small and the trash is big.

I know the desire to hoard electronics. I have all my early smartphones cause they are special. Current phones are boring and not worth collecting. What changed my mind was breaking a cheap phone while fixing it, it instantly became trash. I don’t know if could throw away working phone but broken ones are garbage.

Same. I only replace phones or tablets after they're totally broken. Even after updates stop coming, I'll switch to Lineage (and only buy devices that can be boot unlocked). I DIY repaired my last phone (after buying its replacement) just so I have a working backup phone in the drawer.

I've never had any difficulty giving away broken phones/tablets on craigslist. Someone is collecting them for parts and refurbishing them. Most broken consumer electronics are relatively easy to fix for someone with moderate troubleshooting skills.

Depending on where you live, your state (if in the US) probably has an electronics recycling program. If there's a Best Buy near you, they'll recycle old phones and tablets as well.

I still have an iPhone 3GS. It's fun to turn it on occasionally to scare the kids. Unsurprisingly some apps no longer function because they need cloud services that were discontinued.

I've been tempted to turn them into museum style art showing the evolution of devices over the years.

Same here, I read the article linked elsewhere in this post hoping to find out what to do with them.

Samsung for example often has very good trade in discounts, where they take back broken smartphones. On Samsung EPP sites, sometimes there are great trade-in deals.

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