With Earth Day less than a week away, we all should be thinking about what we can do to help reduce our carbon footprint. Something you can do, that is relatively easy and very important, is recycle your e-waste. E-waste includes all those electronics you have sitting around, from old computers to stereos, and even cell phones.

They say the average life of a cell phone is usually 18-36 months, although the actual working life is often higher. This is where companies like your cell provider and big box stores can step in.

I did a little research and found that both Best Buy and Futureshop will take in your e-waste. They will accept things ranging from cell phones, MP3 players, CDs & DVDs, and even batteries or old printer ink cartridges.

There are certain items like television sets and computers that most of these stores won’t take, but most provinces have their own recycling depots that will take this stuff. (Check the bottom of this post for a list by province)

When it comes to cell phones, you can also take them to your local cellular provider. Each of the big providers has their own program where they will recycle your old phone and give back to the community.

Telus has partnered up with Tree Canada to plant a tree for every cell phone they recycle.
Rogers has partnered up with Phones-For-Food to raise money for the Food Bank
Bell has partnered up with local charities and donates refurbished phones to charities, as well as donating $1 to WWF-Canada for each phone that is recycled.

So do your part and instead of tossing out those old computers or cell phones, make sure you drop them off so they can be recycled properly and keep all the dangerous substances like lead, mercury and heavy metals out of the local landfill.

Listing of local recycling programs by province
Britsh Columbia - Encorp Return-It
Alberta - Alberta Recycling
Saskatchewan - Saskatchewan Waste Reduction Council
Manitoba - Green Manitoba
Ontario - Ontario Electronic Stewardship
Quebec - Collecte Selective Quebec
Newfoundland and Labrador - Dept. of Environment & Conservation
New Brunswick - Department of Environment
Nova Scotia - Environment & Labour
Prince Edward Island - PEI Recycling