E-Waste: Sort It by
How Much of You Is In It

Most guides sort electronics by material. That's the recycler's problem, not yours. Your problem is that some of these devices are objects and some are containers for your life — and the ones in the second group need something done before they leave your hands.

Priced flat, from photos

TV $84–$98 · monitor $78 · desktop $83 · box of electronics $104

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The sort that actually matters

A television and a laptop end up in similar recycling streams. That similarity is the recycler's concern and it tells you nothing useful.

What matters to you is whether the device remembers anything. A speaker doesn't. A phone remembers essentially everything. A smart TV sits somewhere in between and surprises people.

So here are three tiers, sorted by how much of you is inside — and the thing to understand before any of it: the data doesn't leave with the device. Handing something to a recycler, a charity or us does not transfer responsibility for what's on it. That stays with you, and it's only actionable while the device is still in your hands.

Tier one: devices that are just objects

Speakers, stereos, cables, older non-connected televisions, most monitors, microwaves, small kitchen electronics.

These hold nothing about you. They're a material problem only — recoverable metals, plastics, some glass — and you can hand them over without any preparation beyond unplugging them.

Prices: stereo $70, large speaker $77, monitor $78, microwave $40. A mixed box of small electronics and cables is $104.

If it's in this tier and it still works, the free routes are wide open — someone will take a working speaker. Which free routes actually work.

Tier two: devices with an account attached

Smart TVs, streaming sticks and boxes, games consoles, smart speakers, fitness equipment with a screen, anything that asked you to log in.

These don't hold your documents, but they hold your accounts — signed-in services, saved payment methods, a home network password, a viewing or purchase history.

What to do: sign out of every service, then factory reset. Both, in that order — a reset alone doesn't always clear a linked account, and signing out alone leaves the network credentials.

The one people forget is the television itself. A modern TV going out of the house is a signed-in device, and it gets treated like furniture. TV $84 under 42 inches, $91 from 42 to 65, $98 above that. TV removal.

Tier three: devices that hold your files

Computers, laptops, phones, tablets, external drives, network storage, and — genuinely — many printers.

This is the tier that deserves real attention. These hold documents, photographs, saved passwords, browser sessions and years of accumulated correspondence.

What to do: sign out of accounts, back up anything you want, factory reset — and where the device has a drive you can physically remove, take it out and keep it. A drive in your desk drawer is a drive you don't have to think about.

We can't certify data destruction and won't claim to. We're a hauling company. If a device holds something genuinely sensitive, that's a job for a service whose actual business is secure destruction, and it should happen before the hardware becomes our problem. Desktop tower $83.

The printer nobody thinks about

Worth its own section because it's the most consistent blind spot on this page.

Many printers have memory, and depending on the model that can include recently scanned, copied or printed documents. People who would never hand over an unwiped laptop put a printer on the kerb without a second thought.

If it's an office-grade machine or a multifunction unit with a hard drive, check the manufacturer's guidance for clearing it before it goes. A basic home inkjet is usually a much smaller concern, but "usually" is doing real work in that sentence.

Home printer $78. Electronics recycling.

Now the material side: flat screens

Once the data question is settled, what's left is what the thing is made of.

A modern flat panel is largely recoverable — metals, plastics, circuit boards, and a backlight assembly. It's also light for its size: a large flat screen is a two-person carry because it's awkward and fragile, not because it's heavy.

Which is why flat screens price close together — $84, $91 and $98 across the size range. The screen diagonal changes the handling more than the disposal.

CRTs: the genuinely hard case

Old tube televisions and monitors are a different proposition entirely, and this is the section where we're going to decline to give you a number.

A CRT is several times heavier than a flat panel of the same screen size — the difference is dramatic, and anyone who has moved one remembers it. They also contain materials that mean many facilities treat them separately, charge separately for them, or decline them altogether.

Acceptance and charges vary, and we don't have a verified standing rate for them, so we're not going to publish one and let you plan around a guess. Ask us to confirm a price for a tube television or monitor rather than assuming it matches the flat-screen tiers above.

What we'd say practically: if you have a CRT in a basement or garage, it isn't getting easier to deal with, and it's the one item on this page genuinely worth handling deliberately rather than leaving for a clear-out. Basement clears · garage clears.

What the rules actually are here

Stated carefully, because this is where pages like ours tend to invent things.

Electronics are commonly routed through dedicated recycling channels rather than general household waste. That's the practical reality across most of the country.

What applies specifically to you depends on your own hauler and the facility you'd use — and Colorado Springs has no municipal collection at all, so there's no single city answer to fall back on. How private subscription service works here.

We're not going to quote you a state rule, a fee schedule or a programme name. We haven't verified them, and a page confidently reciting a regulation it hasn't checked is worse than a page that tells you to ring the facility. Ring the facility.

If it still works, it's worth something

Same principle as appliances, and it applies strongly to electronics.

Working devices have real resale and reuse demand, and this region's constant turnover of arriving and departing households keeps that demand steady year-round.

The condition to protect is demonstrability. A machine someone can switch on and watch boot is worth something. The same machine wiped, disassembled and boxed in a garage generally isn't — so sell or pass it on before you strip it, not after.

And ask about take-back if you're replacing it. Some retailers and manufacturers run trade-in or take-back arrangements; terms vary by company and product, and it costs nothing to ask at the point of purchase. We're not listing who offers what, because those programmes change. The same logic for appliances.

Equipment that isn't yours to dispose of

This matters more here than in most cities, and it's worth a deliberate check rather than an assumption.

Work-issued and government-issued equipment does not belong to you and must not be handed to a hauling company — laptops, phones, tablets, docking stations, encryption or access devices, anything asset-tagged. It goes back through the issuing organisation's own process, and that is true whether or not anyone has chased you for it.

The reason it comes up: a household clearing out under time pressure sweeps drawers. In a city with this much military and contractor presence, and with moves concentrated into the PCS window, work equipment ends up in the same pile as the old router more often than you'd think.

Look for an asset tag, an inventory sticker or a serial label before anything with a screen goes in a box. If you find one, set the device aside and ask — the awkward conversation is dramatically cheaper than the alternative. We will not knowingly remove tagged equipment. The PCS move-out guide.

The router, and the rest of the network

The one device almost nobody wipes, and it holds something specific.

A router stores your network name and password, and often a list of every device that has connected to it. Smart home hubs, cameras and doorbells are the same category — they hold network credentials and, in some cases, recordings.

Factory reset each one before it leaves, and remove any memory card. If the equipment was supplied by your internet provider, it's probably theirs and should be returned rather than disposed of — another item that isn't yours to get rid of.

What it costs

ItemFlat price
Minimum$75
TV under 42"$84
TV 42" to 65"$91
TV over 65"$98
Tube TV or CRT monitorAsk us to confirm
Computer monitor$78
Desktop tower$83
Home printer$78
Stereo / large speaker$70 / $77
Microwave$40
Box of mixed electronics and cables$104
Stairs, long carry, no liftNo charge

No sales tax on the service in Colorado. Below a certain value our $75 minimum makes us poor value for a single small device — a free route is better. Full price list.

The box is usually the answer

A practical point that saves money on the most common version of this job.

Most households clearing electronics aren't removing one device — they're removing a drawer of cables, two old phones, a router, a games console nobody uses and a printer. Priced individually that adds up quickly.

A box of mixed electronics is $104, and for an accumulation of small devices that's usually well below the sum of its parts. Sort the data-holding items out of it first — phones and drives get handled as in tier three — and the remainder goes as one line.

The exception is anything large: a television or a tower is its own item regardless of what else is going.

Cheat sheet by device

Flat-screen TV

$84 / $91 / $98 by size. Sign out and reset if it's smart.

Tube TV or CRT monitor

Ask us to confirm. Heavy, and facility acceptance varies.

Laptop or desktop

Remove the drive and keep it. Tower $83.

Phone or tablet

Sign out, reset. Often worth trading in instead.

External or network drive

Highest-risk item here. Keep it or have it professionally destroyed.

Printer

Check if it has memory. $78 for a home unit.

Games console

Signed-in device — sign out and reset. Working ones sell well.

Monitor

$78, and holds nothing.

Stereo, speakers, cables

$70 / $77, or box them at $104.

Drawer of miscellaneous electronics

Box it — $104. Pull the data-holding items out first.

Anything still working

Sell before stripping. Demonstrability is the value.

A whole office clear-out

Volume pricing. Quarter truck $325 upward. How both methods compare.

The golden rule

Decide what's on it before you decide where it goes. Every other question about electronics — the material, the recycling channel, the price — is answerable later or by somebody else. The data question is answerable only by you, and only while the device is still in your possession. Once a laptop is on a truck, your options have gone from several to none, and no assurance from a hauling company is worth as much as a drive sitting in your desk drawer. So work down the tiers: the speakers and cables need nothing, the smart devices need signing out and resetting, and anything holding your files needs the drive out or a proper wipe first. Then, and only then, worry about what it costs to make it disappear.

Once the data's handled

Flat price from photos — TVs, towers, or a box of the lot

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