Upgrading Your Phone? Don't Toss the Old One: Experts Explain Safe, Sustainable Disposal

Most households have at least two old phones sitting in a drawer right now. They go in because rules around electronic waste make the bin a bad option, and they stay because getting around to disposing of them keeps sliding down the list. Over time the phone becomes a permanent fixture among the cables and spare keys. Two experts say that is worth fixing, and that proper disposal is easier than most people assume.

Astha Upadhyay, a materials and environmental scientist at Temple University, describes phones as treasure mines. They contain gold, silver, cobalt, lithium and other critical metals that take energy and natural resources to extract. When a phone is thrown away, she says, those materials drop out of the resource cycle and end up in landfills.

The consequence is more mining and fewer resources overall. Recovering metals from discarded electronics, Upadhyay says, keeps them in the supply chain, reduces mining and the import of critical minerals, and can strengthen a nation's economic and resource security. She calls it a small individual action that feeds into a more resource-efficient economy.

There is also a privacy problem. Aimee Simpson, Director of Product Marketing at Huntress, notes that old phones hold saved passwords, private messages, photos and account details. Many people assume that once a phone is in the trash or a desk drawer, that information is gone. It is not, she says, and although it may seem unlikely, a malicious user could find it. The battery adds a physical risk: if discarded improperly, it can become a fire hazard to people and animals.

For phones that still work, the first option is to sell or give them away. Upadhyay suggests secondhand marketplaces such as Facebook Marketplace, or simply passing the phone to someone who can use it, which extends its life and reduces demand for new devices. Simpson's advice before handing it over has three steps: back up what you want to keep to a physical drive, sign out of all accounts, and perform a factory reset. The reset erases the device and restores its original settings, and she says to do it whenever you sell or give away a phone.

The second option is a trade-in. Upadhyay says many manufacturers and retailers run programs that may pay cash or store credit, and that steer devices toward refurbishment or proper recycling. For someone already planning an upgrade, it is a way to get something back from the old handset.

Upadhyay also offers what she calls an unpopular opinion: keeping a phone as long as possible is the most sustainable choice. Upgrading is more practical for many users, she acknowledges, but repairing a damaged screen or replacing a worn-out battery is better for the environment than buying a new phone.

If the phone is truly dead and cannot be sold or traded, the third route is recycling. Upadhyay points to manufacturer take-back programs, participating retailers and local government collection sites, and recommends the U.S. EPA's electronics recycling resource for finding options. Some universities and labs also accept end-of-life electronics. Her own research on critical and rare earth metals used cell phones collected from one such facility at her previous institution, Temple University in Philadelphia.

The practical order, then, is to repair first, resell or trade in second, and recycle through a certified program when nothing else works.