Why old smartphones end up in a drawer instead of recycling or reselling

Think back to the last smartphone, tablet or smartwatch you stopped using.

Chances are it is neither in a recycling container nor with a new owner; it is probably tucked away in a drawer.

In our survey of 4,000 American consumers, the most frequent thing people did with a device they no longer used was, quite simply, nothing: 39% said they stored it.

By contrast, outcomes that are generally better for the environment-recycling and reselling-each accounted for only about 1 in 10 devices. Another 9% of devices were thrown away in the rubbish.

Supported by the National Science Foundation, our multidisciplinary team brought together expertise in causal inference, sustainability and cybersecurity to tackle a knotty question: what do people actually do with their consumer electronics once they are finished with them?

To answer it, we applied statistical models that link what people report-namely their stated knowledge and attitudes-to what they went on to do in practice.

Why the drawer wins

Two key pressures keep devices languishing in drawers. First, there is anxiety about personal data. People who feared that recycling or reselling might expose their data were 14% and 9% more likely, respectively, to store the device instead.

Second, many people simply do not know how to proceed. Those who did not know where to recycle were 10% more likely to keep hold of a device, and many also hung on to old gadgets because they saw them as a kind of data back-up.

In reality, recycling and reselling electronics are much more straightforward than many people assume.

In the United States, the national chain Best Buy takes devices for recycling; and reselling online is easy through vendors such as Back Market and Gazelle.

Before you hand over a phone or computer, make sure you wipe the data. You should also remove the device from your account-for example, via Apple or Android. If you do not, the device remains locked to you, meaning nobody else can use it.

We also examined the gap between what people said they planned to do and what they actually did.

That comparison highlighted an important point: worries about data security pushed people to store devices more often than they themselves said they intended.

Put differently, the fear of personal data leaking tends to surface when someone faces the real-world choice of passing a device to a recycler or a second-hand buyer.

Getting at why people don't recycle

For a long time, researchers have investigated why people choose to recycle-or not recycle-electronics. Convenience, awareness and incentives have repeatedly emerged as factors shaping the decision. However, earlier work tended to treat recycling as the only alternative.

Rather than framing the issue as a simple yes-or-no decision about recycling, we approach it as a comparison across several options: storing, reselling, donating, trading in, recycling and throwing the device away in the rubbish. Modelling the choice in this way reveals the trade-offs.

For example, knowing where to recycle made recycling 47% more likely, but it also shifted people away from reselling, which is often the more environmentally friendly option. You can explore the survey results in our interactive dashboards.

Getting people to let go

Storage is the worst of both worlds: a device left unused for years loses resale value, while securely erasing its data typically becomes more difficult as time passes.

The encouraging news is that the biggest obstacles-data worries and not knowing where to go-can be reduced with clearer information.

We are experimenting with information interventions that guide people through their choices, including how to wipe data securely.

We are also testing nudges through randomised, controlled trials to see what prompts people to give their old electronics a second life.

This may be a good moment to recall which old devices you are still keeping and to re-examine your reasons for not letting them go.

Eric Williams, Professor of Sustainability, Rochester Institute of Technology; Payam Saeedi, Ph.D. Candidate in Sustainability, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Stacey Watson, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Waterloo

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.