Last updated April 12, 2019
A MerrittIsland couple has decided to become recycling entrepreneurs, setting up their own company to enable the recycling of old cell phones along with other now unusable electronic equipment which would otherwise end up clogging up landfills. The online business, eRecyclingNetwork.com, is described as being “an alternative to letting” old cell phones and other defunct electronic equipment just “sit around your house”, according to its co-founder, Conrad Melancon.
With thirty million computers replaced each and every month in the United States, and most cell phone users changing their old cellular every nine months, the amount of waste is obviously great, and the Melancons wanted to create an alternative method for people to get rid of them. “Most people know that they shouldn’t just throw them away because it’s bad for the environment,” notes Melancon, but adds that many do indeed just “end up throwing them away”. Now the Melancons have set up the online business by forging a deal with an electronics recycler based in Minnesota, which enables users to check out how much their old cell phones etc are worth, and even print out a mailing label so that they can send it in to be recycled minus the cost of postage. “They can trade in their old products and use that to defray the cost of their new product,” he says, a deal that applies to not just old cell phones but also cameras, laptop computers, GPS devices and even flat screen televisions.