gGadget.org

Ditching your old mobile phone for a better-stronger-faster iPhone 3G or Blackberry Bold? Great, but be sure to do the world a favor and dispose of your old phone in a green-tech friendly such as those described in the EcoLocalizer story Five Green Ways to Dispose of That Old Cell Phone.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the story, FYI:

Cell phones contain a number of toxins that build up in the environment over time, like arsenic, antimony, beryllium, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel and zinc. These chemicals are linked to all sorts of nasty health problems, such as neurological disorders and cancer.

As for the smashed-screen iPhone in the picture, that was mine. I dropped it the night before the new iPhone 3G went on sale. I’d had no intention of buying the new iPhone 3G right away, and was going to wait for the crowds to die down and bug fixes to take care of any first-run issues that would likely crop up. But fate stepped in and somehow my hand knocked the device off my desk and onto the floor with all the grace of the Diving Horse that used to plunge from its perch atop a pool on Atlantic City’s Steel Pier. Ironically enough I wound up at the Apple Store on the Atlantic City Boardwalk to stand in line with more than a hundred others to acquire the new model (though not without some bribery on my part on account of I needed to get to NYC before 5 p.m. to talk about the new iPhone 3G on Fox’s Happy Hour program).

Despite the smashed screen my old phone fetched more than $200 on eBay – an option that isn’t mentioned in the EcoLocalizer story but one worth considering if your “old” mobile phone is still new enough to fetch a good price on eBay or Craigslist.org.