Electronics

[bargainsgirl]

What does one do to cell phones and laptops before you take them to a recycling center?

[Deb665]

I remove the hard drive from the laptop and either drill holes in it or smash it to smitherens with a hammer.  Only then am I ok taking it to the recycle center.

[Peaches McPhee]

You might not have to do anything.  A reputable electronics cycling center (say, through your local government), will "scrub" the item clean for you. That is part of the process.

[Alison Wonderland]

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@Peaches McPhee wrote:

You might not have to do anything.  A reputable electronics cycling center (say, through your local government), will "scrub" the item clean for you. That is part of the process.

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While a company may be reputable, that doesn't mean that every single person who handles the items is. Sometimes things fall through the cracks or a third party company that is't so reputable is hired. It's always best to do it yourself.

I work for a tech company and they're offering electroics recylcing to employees for earth day, but I know they take the items to another facility not owned by my company for the actual recycling. I would absolutely make sure my own data is safe before turning anything over.

[glb613]

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@bargainsgirl wrote:

What does one do to cell phones and laptops before you take them to a recycling center?

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Take out the hard drive and use it for backups and other storage.  When I owned Windows based computers, I bought a program called Wipe Drive.  It overwrites the data multiple times or scrubs the drive making the data unreadable.   I've never had any data breach from a computer I either sold or gave away.  

[Bird mama]

For the cell phone I took out any and all sim/memory cards.  On one computer, I took the drive out, drilled holes and beat it with a sledge hammer.  On another computer I used to have a program that would rewrite the drive based on certain guidelines.  I ran that computer one time for over a month, non stop in the basement re-writing 2 drives 37X each.

[x Hedge]

Remove any removable battery, sim card, etc and submerge device in water, for a week or two, then drill the holes, smash it with a sledge, as other posters have suggested.

As for donating your device to women's shelters and such, think of it this way; if you wouldn't feel safe giving your phone to some stranger at the bus stop, don't donate your phone.

Your identity is only as safe as the as the most unscrupulous person who might someday get their hands on your phone. 

[gardenman]

Removing the SIM card and hard drives is smart, but unless you're a high value target (government worker, famous, high muckity-muck in a company, etc.) you're probably pretty safe just deleting any data you don't want found or exposed. There are far faster, cheaper ways for the bad guys/gals to get the data one could get from computer hard drives. If you're a crook, would you buy a computer hoping that whoever had it before left you something of value on the hard drive? Crooks don't like spending money in the hope that they'll find something of value. They're more likely to do a snatch and grab of a laptop at a Starbucks or similar place where they know it hasn't been scrubbed. If you want to be absolutely safe, remove the SIM card and hard drives. That's the surest way to protect your data.

[Cats3000]

With cell phones, we're usually trading the old one for a new one.  We have the information transferred to the new phone and the store recycles the old one.  We don't do it ourselves.

With computers, we deal only with an Apple Retail Store.  We have them transfer the data and recycle the computer.  We've done it with iMacs and iPads.

We believe we're safe.

[sunshine45]

took some old laptops to best buy recently and they recycle them. they also removed the hard drives and gave them to me.