Mobile buyback and recycling company e-Cycle has launched an online tool that buys used mobile phones and tablets and pays consumers for their used devices while deleting data and recycling the e-waste.
The company purchases more than 150 types of mobile phones and tablets, issuing a check or PayPal payment to consumers within 48 hours of receiving the device. E-Cycle says this is the fastest turnaround time for payment in the mobile recycling industry. E-Cycle also provides consumers with a prepaid mailing label to send in their devices.
The company conducts its own independently verified data removal and does not outsource to third-party vendors to ensure secure data protection services. E-Cycle says more than 95 percent of the devices it receives still contain sensitive information despite people believing they had wiped the devices clean. To protect consumer information, e-Cycle overwrites data and restores factory resets.
In addition to phones and tablets, the mobile buyback portal also allows consumers to mail chargers, chords and batteries in the pre-paid shipment. The company recycles the e-waste free of charge.
Devices with resale values are cleansed of data and sold in developing countries. The company says it never resells devices on e-Bay, and devices that cannot be recycled are shredded on site and sent to a recycling facility to reclaim the materials to make new products. E-Cycle has a zero landfill policy.
As an incentive, anyone who sells a device via the e-Cycle consumer portal through March 31 will be entered into a free drawing for a $500 Apple gift card.
Sprint has also created a recycling buyback program to lower the number of feature phones and smartphones discarded every year. The company plans to collect nine out of every 10 devices it sells for reuse and recycling by 2017. Today, the company collects four of every 10 devices it sells and reuses about 90 percent of those collected.
By recycling 50,942 devices during a one-week period in November 2012, AT&T customers broke the world record for collecting the most wireless devices in a week, as certified by Guinness World Records.
