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Repurposing Old Usable Cell Phones?
zentogo wonders: "As I stroll through the local recycle shops in my little Japanese City, I see boxes of used KEITAI-- Japanese Cell Phones. Most of them only a two or three years old, with more technology and features than any affordable phone in the USA, and they actually work! See, Japanese people cycle to new technology, especially phones, very quickly, and it is almost impossible for them not to. Take my own personal example: after one year with the telecom KDDI, I was given a free phone. It had more features than my previous one, and was much lighter, so when I was offered the deal I changed on the spot! So I wonder, what can be done with all these old phones? Can they be recycled for parts or even software? Can they be adapted to another type of technology? It would seem to be a big waste of decent hardware if something interesting couldn't be done with them."
Sometimes you can get them unlocked at a kiosk in the mall, but otherwise take time to your local waste transfer station, and they will dispose of it for you in a way that the lead/mercury/other heavy metals dosnt leak into the environment. Its like spray paint cans, you dont put them in household garbage.
http://www.phones4charity.org/h ones.htm
http://www.actionaidrecycling.org.uk/
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/recycle/p
http://www.recyclingappeal.com/
Seriously, a lot of phones in Japan have the capability to work in the US with Cingular and T-Mobile (not so much Spring, Nextel, or Verizon).
Seriously - get these phones unlocked, and eBay them to Americans.
I just spent $500 on a brand new Sony Ericsson S710a that isn't even available in this part of the country yet. It's got all sorts of cool features, including a 1.3 MP camera (pretty damned nice, for a phone). But I still can't help but to feel like an ass for spending the money knowing that, for instance, Samsung has a phone of nearly identical size out in South Korea with a 3MP camera and significantly more memory.
Second-hand phones in the Asian market are still better than cutting edge in the US. Given that most high-end phones can work with the majority of service providers in the world, I'm amazed there isn't a sort of cottage industry around, selling second-hand phones to the US market for discount prices.
Believe me - take a look at sites like Howard Forums - there are a lot of cell phone/gadget enthusiasts out there that would be plenty happy to not have to buy the overpriced, under-performing phones marketed in the US.