Want to Recycle Your Old Laptops and Technology? Here is a step-by-step guide
Look, we all have that “shelf of shame” in the closet—the graveyard of ancient laptops, tangled electrical bricks, and printers that haven’t seen an ink cartridge since 2019. In 2026, letting this e-waste rot in your house is not just a problem of accumulation; it is a security risk and a huge waste of resources. Most people think that recycling tech requires a trip to a hazardous waste center in the middle of nowhere, but the truth is that it’s much less of a headache.
Supermarkets like Best Buy and Staples have become the dumping grounds for your digital junk. You can literally walk into a store with a dead PC or a rugged old scanner and give it away for free, no matter where you bought it. Some of these places will give you a discount like a bone on new gear or a trade-in credit—for helping them recover heavy metals and plastics that don’t belong in the landfill. It’s an easy way to reclaim your storage space without feeling like an angry person throwing electronics in the trash.
This story is part of 12 days of tipshelps you make the most of your technology, home and health during the holidays.
The only real “job” on your end is to make sure you don’t sacrifice your health and hardware. Before you dispose of the device, you need to perform a formal data wipe—not just “drag files to the trash can.” A ten-minute factory reset or a dedicated hard drive wipe tool ensures that your old tax returns and saved passwords don’t become someone else’s property. Stop pretending you’re going to “fix” that laptop from 2015 and let a professional refurbish it for parts instead.
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What to do before you recycle your old computer
Wherever you pick up or send your items for recycling, you’ll want to protect them your data by removing it as much as you can. Another way to do this is to perform a factory reset on your computer. Ours the guide walks with you in the process.
Where you can recycle your old printers and computers
Some retail stores will accept computers and printers for recycling, but it’s not always a free service. Policies vary by company.
an apple
You can recycle your old Apple computers, the guards and peripherals, such as printers, are free at the Apple store, but there is an expensive catch. For the Apple Free Recycling program, you must purchase an eligible Apple computer or monitor to receive this service. Need another option? A third party company called Gazelle is buying the old one MacBooks to reuse them. After accepting Gazelle’s offer, you print a prepaid label or request a prepaid box and send the machine to them.
Read more: Phone and Laptop Repair Made Easy with a Push From iFixit
Best Buy
Best Buy typically accepts up to three household items per household per day for free recycling, including desktop computers and printers, as well as other items ranging from e-readers to vacuum cleaners. While three is the limit for most items, there is a higher limit for laptops — Best Buy will take five of those for a day. Note that the rules for removing monitors vary by state, and it’s not always easy to do so. Best Buy also offers email renewal service on select items, but that’s also not free. A small box that holds up to 6 pounds costs $23, while a large box (up to 15 pounds) costs $30. One CNET editor recently installed an old, defunct TV-VCR combo for e-cycling, and was happy to pay $30 to get rid of it.
Office Depot
Office Depot and OfficeMax merged in 2013. Retailers offer a technology trade-in program both in-store and online, where you may be able to get a store gift card in exchange for your old computers and printers. If the device has no trade-in value, the company will recycle it for free. Office Depot also sells waste recycling boxes that you can fill up electronically for recycling and drop off at stores, but they’re not free. Small boxes cost 8.39 $ and hold up to 20 pounds, medium cost 18.29 $ and holds up to 40 pounds, and larger boxes cost $28 and hold up to 60 pounds.
The basics
You can bring your old desktop computers, laptops, printers and more to a Staples checkout counter for free recycling, even if they weren’t purchased there. According to a Staples rep, the retailer also has a free home battery recycling box, which has led customers to recycle thousands of batteries per week, up from the previous average of 50 per week. Here is a list of everything that can be recycled at Staples.
Watch this: Give Your Old Phone a Second Life: The Right Way to Recycle and Recycle
Where to find electronics recycling centers
If you don’t live near a major retailer or would like to take your computers and printers to a recycling center, you can find locations near you by using search tools provided by Earth911 and the Consumer Technology Association.
World911
Use the recycling center search function on Earth911 to find recycling centers near your ZIP code that accept laptops, desktops and printers. Note that the results may also reveal receptive fields cell phones and not computers or printers, so you may have to do a little sorting.
Green Gadgets
Consult the Consumer Technology Association’s Greener Gadgets Recycle Locator to find local recycling centers in your area that will take old items. The search function also allows you to filter the results to hunt separately for computers versus printers.
