During his presentation last week, Colin mentioned his research into sustainability and the cradle-to-cradle concept, specifically. I thought I’d share my recent experience with Green Phone, which I first heard about in this New York Times Magazine article in January. It’s an easy way to recycle old mobile devices -- and you get paid to do it. Here’s how it works:

1. Go to greenphone.com.
2. Tell them what model of phone you have, and set up an account.
3. They generate a postage-paid mailing label for you. Print it out, and stick the label on a padded envelope.
4. Put your old phone and accessories in the envelope, and drop it off at the Post Office.
5. Wait a couple weeks for them to receive and test your phone. If it’s in good working condition, they’ll cut you a check! If not, well, they’ll recycle all the parts (including toxics, like mercury) and hey, no big loss on your part -- you didn’t even pay for postage!

I had an early RAZR and they cut me a check for $22. (It would’ve been $28, but the screen was damaged.) From my point of view, the best part is that they recycled all my useless accessories, like the charger and earbud, which I could not have recycled myself locally.

Be sure to use my referral code of 50957 to get a 10% bonus. (Just using the link above should work.)