How Many Old Gadgets Do You Have In Your Drawers?

You’re not the only one eyeing the newest gadgets and looking to trade in last year’s model:

According to the latest data from Recon Analytics, Americans top the international charts in frequency of switching cell phones at every 21.7 months.
And in an on-line survey* from December 2011 by phonearena.com, when asked: “How often do you change your phone?” the responses indicate that
there is a significant population who don’t even wait that long before picking up the latest gadget:

23.4% Less than a year

31.77% Every year

32.04% Every two years

12.79% More than two years

*(out of 1876 votes)

Time to give them a new home!

If you’re like almost 75% of the population, chances are you’re storing some old small electronics like phones, chargers, and MP3 players in a drawer someplace. As technology becomes outdated with the newest market trends, we tend to store the old ones. Believe it or not, there is actually a lot of value in the parts of your old electronics, and they can be refurbished or recycled! As part of preserving the environment for future generations, donate your electronics to a meaningful program that promotes proper recycling and disposal of electronics devices.

Safety tips for electronic disposal:

• Permanently remove personal and sensitive information
• Dispose of only via designated electronic recycling/donation drop-off locations; the batteries and heavy metals found in electronics are toxic
• Click here for tips from the Federal Trade Commission and to find local disposal and donation locations

Did you know? Only 69% of households in the “Industrialized World” countries have one land line telephone. Whereas 96% of households in “Industrialized World” countries have at least one mobile phone account, and of those homes, the average number of phones per household is 2.7.

In the “Emerging World” countries, 52% of households have one land line telephone, whereas 59% of households have at least one mobile phone. Even in the poorest
regions (often beyond electricity) about 200 million households have one mobile phone shared as the family phone.

When added together, the total number of households that have at least one mobile phone is 1.25 Billion, with a total of 4.2 Billion connected mobile phones in use,
connecting over 4.4 Billion people!

Data courtesy of Household Penetration Rates for Technology Across the Digital Divide

---