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A new year means it’s time to refresh. Here’s how to get rid of all those old electronics cluttering your home.
We all have that closet full of old laptops and tangled printer cables because no one wants to have to worry about disposing of them properly. But in 2026, leaving computers and other rotting technologies aren’t just a waste of space; it’s a missed opportunity to do the bare minimum for the planet without spending a cent. Most people assume that they need to find a specialist facility, but the reality is much more practical.
Retail giants including Best Buy and Staples have become unofficial dumping grounds of the digital age. You can walk in with a dead PC or old Inkjet and hand it in for free – no questions asked, no matter where you originally purchased it. Some of these stores will even give you a gift card or a discount on new gear just to get rid of your clutter. It’s a win-win: you get your storage space back and heavy metals stay out of the local landfill.
Before you drop off that old tech, just make sure you’re not passing along your entire digital identity with the hardware. A quick factory reset or specialized “drive wipe” takes 10 minutes and ensures your old tax returns don’t end up in the wrong hands. Stop hoarding the ghosts of past technology and let these retailers do the dirty work of taking them apart for parts.
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What to do before recycling your old computer
Wherever you take or post your items to be recycled, you will want to protect them your data removing it as best you can. One way to do this is to perform a factory reset on your computer. OUR guided walks you throughout the process.
Where to recycle your old printers and computers
Some retail stores accept computers and printers for recycling, but this is not always a free service. Policies vary by company.
Apple
You can recycle your old Apple computers, monitors and peripherals, such as printers, for free at an Apple Store, but there’s a costly catch. Under the Apple Free Recycling program, you must purchase an eligible Apple computer or monitor to benefit from this service. Need another option? A third party company called Gazelle buys old Macbook to recycle them. After accepting Gazelle’s offer, you print a prepaid label or request a prepaid box and ship the machine to them.
Learn more: Phone and laptop repair goes mainstream thanks to iFixit Push
Best buy
Best Buy generally accepts up to three household items per household per day for recycling for free, including desktop computers and printers, as well as other items ranging from e-readers to vacuum cleaners. Although the limit is three for most items, there is a higher limit for laptops: Best Buy will take five per household per day. Note that the rules for filing monitors vary by state and it’s not always free. Best Buy also offers mail-in recycling for some items, but it’s not free either. A small box that holds up to 6 pounds costs $23, while a large box (up to 15 pounds) costs $30. A CNET editor recently took an old, non-working tube TV-VCR combo for the e-bike and was happy to pay $30 to get rid of it.
Office Depot
Office Depot and OfficeMax merged in 2013. The retailers offer a technology trade-in program in-store and online, where you may be able to get an in-store gift card in exchange for your old computers and printers. If the device has no trade-in value, the company will recycle it free of charge. Office Depot also sells e-waste recycling boxes that you can fill with electronics to recycle and then drop off at stores, but they’re not free. Small boxes costs $8.39 and support up to 20 pounds, means costs $18.29 and can support up to 40 pounds, and large boxes costs $28 and can support up to 60 pounds.
Staples
You can bring your old desktops, laptops, printers and more to the Staples checkout for free recycling, even if they weren’t purchased there. According to a Staples representative, the retailer also has a free at-home battery recycling box, which has led to customers recycling thousands of batteries per week, up from a previous average of 50 per week. Here’s 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 reuse it
Where to find electronics recycling centers
If you don’t live near a major retailer or prefer to take your computers and printers to a recycling center, you can locate locations near you using search tools provided by Earth911 and the Consumer Technology Association.
Earth911
Use the Recycling Center Finder feature on Earth911 to find recycling centers near your zip code that accept laptops, desktops and printers. Note that the results may also reveal places accepting cell phones and not computers or printers, so you may need to do a little filtering.
Greener gadgets
Visit the Consumer Technology Association’s Greener Gadgets Recycling Locator to find local recycling centers in your area that will accept old items. The search function also allows you to filter the results to separately search for locations that take up computers versus printers.
