How to Remove Data from Electronics Before Recycling

By recycling 1 million laptops, we can save the energy equivalent to the electricity used by 3,500 American homes in a year, according to the EPA. This is one of many good reasons to recycle old electronics, yet recycling rates could be much higher. Only 38% of old computers that had reached the end of their useful lives were collected for recycling in 2009, and for cellphones that number was even lower at 8%.

Privacy and data theft concerns are often-cited reasons for why people hang on to old electronics. The average person may not know how to ensure a laptop’s hard drive is unreadable or that personal data has been removed from a cellphone.