Exchange Used Phones for Cash on the New EcoATM

Today, recycling your used and old phones is as simple as withdrawing cash from your bank’s ATM. With the new EcoATM, companies have found an easy way of getting people to practice gadget recycling through a familiar and popular method.

All one has to do is insert a used or old phone in the EcoATM machine slot. The EcoATM will then determine what value your used phone has and will make you an offer that you can refuse or not. Once you decide to trade in your old phone for cash, it will dispense the corresponding amount you agreed to and the transaction is complete. In the event that your phone doesn’t garner any value at all, you also have the option of letting the machine consume it for refurbishing or recycling later on.

The EcoATM is intended to be installed in stores where electronics are sold. People who do trade in their phones at certain electronics stores may also have an option of trading up to a better phone or availing of store credit in selected electronics stores. For those phones without value, the customer depositing it may redeem a freebie from the electronics store or even get a tree planted in their honor as a symbol of their act of lending a hand in the environmentally-friendly practice.

The company distributing the machines recorded high usage for the EcoATM machine during its experimental stage. On the first day that the first machine was installed in Omaha, 23 cellular phones were recycled. On the second day, payouts made on used phones reached $100. There was even a report of a top-condition Blackberry Curve put in one EcoATM! After this experiment, if all continues to go well, EcoATMs will be distributed to 4 other locations before the end of 2009, and a large scale distribution will be done in 2010.

Some consumers have question how the EcoATM is able to put value on your phone and whether or not it can detect if a cellular phone is damaged. Installed in the EcoATM are cameras that will detect cracks and damage on the cellular phone to help in evaluating the gadget’s worth. There are even plans to expand and make EcoATMs that will recycle laptops, printers and other electronic equipment.