Last Month, in a deal with Blockbusters, Trade2save in partnership with Hillco purchased over 200,000 DVDs, Games and Bluray Movies from over 60 Blockbuster stores singled out for closure. Trade2save are in talks with Blockbusters to handle the liquidation of some of the remaining 850 stores set for closure this year around the country.

Using State of the Art RTI disk resurfacing machines, trade2save resurfaces, re-case and shrink wrap all the inventory. Travis O’Dell, Creative Director says: ” By making our inventory look and feel like new, customers will be encouraged to buy used instead of buying new - this in turn will cut the huge volumes being churned out by the games and entertainment industries each year.

Trade2save also has a restoration center for the thousands of phones coming through its doors. Travis adds ” The trade2save 10 point inspection and refurbishment process ensures that customers buying a pre-owned cellphone or other electronics won’t be getting something shoddy. In most cases we re-case the phone making it look, feel and work like new. Our bottom line is reducing e-waste, and making customers feel good about their pre-owned purchase is an important part of our business”

Trade2save takes over the new premises in 4 weeks. The customer services center will be open too. While the new website is undergoing final tests, customers who want an instant quote for their used games, movies cellphones, computers and other electronics can email trade2save at sales@trade2save.com or call 415-826-9188 Monday-Friday 9.30 a.m - 6.30 p.m. Pacific Time.

Chairman of the EA, Chris Smith, already has quite a track record in the fight against e-waste, as the EA is currently involved in 8 investigations regarding illegal e waste exporters and has made 12 arrests, making him a more than qualified leader for this international effort.At the moment the new Interpol e waste force will focus on countries already subject to much dumping such as Ghana, Nigeria, China, etc.  in order to prevent further illegal waste.

This is great news, and trade2save is excited to hear that this major international problem is getting an appropriate major international response. Trade2save has faith in the EA to lead this new task force as it’s previous endeavors have received recognition and praise even from out own Environmental Protection Agency (which is also to be included in the Interpol force). Hopefully with more investigation, pressure, and legal action, e waste criminals will punished for their hazardous, toxic crimes against the environment and humanity.

While this may seem like our daily plug, trade2save encourages our readers not to wait idly for government agencies to fight our battles for us! Make sure you do you part and recycle your ewaste at reputable recyclers (do your research and pay the fee!) Furthermore, if your electronics are still usable, give them to somebody who can use them or sell them! By lowering electronic product demand we can all do our part in this e waste fight by lowering the amount of waste produced. While we clean up our wasteful habits, Interpol can clean up the criminals who take advantage of our old gadgets.

It has been a chaotic but rewarding week as our new office is pretty much up and running albeit a few tweaks to be made here and there. Furthermore, with the rampant spreading of flu, colds, and general sickness our staff has taken it’s fair share of casualties so make sure all you out there are taking your vitamins and getting your 8 hours of sleep!

Reported last night, news website examiner.com posted a great article summarizing our nation’s major e waste issues, referencing great back links to our current national (or lack of) policy, state’s attempts to enforce local legislation, and even frontline video reports, a must see. Focusing specifically on the Bay Area and San Francisco, the author continues to follow through where most consumers stop caring (out of sight out of mind), calling out recycling companies’ shady exportation of electronic waste.

Trade2save is happy to see that bigger name news companies such as the examiner are directing their focus on e waste. This is a great summary article that highlights the e waste issue quickly and to the point but lacks further depth. We believe this is still not enough coverage but at least is a start that is approachable by most average readers. The article does do a good job of emphasizing the need to start focusing on creating electronics that are easier to reuse, refurbish and recycle. Naturally trade2save is with this argument for extended life span as with longer use comes less waste. Regardless of future products, just make sure to think twice this holiday season before you buy that new 24″ monitor to replace your 19″. Enjoy the weekend!!

The bill is known as “The Electronic Device Recycling Research and Development Act,” or, “S.1397” and awaits consideration from US Senate. The bill outlines our rapidly growing problem of electronic production and e waste growth, along with the lack of public knowledge regarding the issue. The bill appears to focus on funding for research on  the safest, most efficient way to recycle current e-waste and how to curb the future production of more.

Trade2save is ecstatic at the news of a potential national e waste policy. As one of the largest consumer/producer bases of electronic gadgets, the U.S is embarrassingly behind in e-waste management, lacking a national policy or the ratification of the “Basel Convention,” a regulatory measure to combat the exportation of hazardous waste (including e waste) to other countries. Most pertinent to trade2save’s goal and business, the bill states a goal to get electronic producers/consumers to”reconsider product design and assembly to facilitate and improve refurbishment, reuse, and recycling.”

While we here at trade2save of course are behind this 100%, the bill still has a long way to go before it’s actually passed. Furthermore, the bill only allocates money to researching e-waste problems and has yet to directly control companies’ and consumers’ e-waste practices. Hopefully with the passing of this bill, our government will open the door to more r&d on e-waste, increase public awareness, and begin creating actual legislation for consumer action. One way or another, the consumer can, regardless of any bill, demand more  green products, recycle and resell old electronics, and buy pre-owned, so to all our readers, never forget your own power!

Please forgive the absence of activity the past few days as trade2save has officially moved into a new office! Trade2save apologizes if we’ve been difficult to reach but our computers are set up, our power and internet is good to go, our inventory stocked, and of course our fridge plugged in and filled (most important!)

The past two days have been chaotic but our readers can be assured that things shall carry on as normal, albeit from a bigger, better location! For the time being we shall leave you all with warm thanks for the support you’ve given us so far that has encouraged trade2save’s expansion as we continue to unload our pre owned treasure chest

-the trade2save team

The study chose to cite California as it’s example of a flat, enforced fee charged to consumers when recycle electronics. Not only does this fee ensure the proper and safe disposal of the e waste by avoiding shady middle man companies (who often export e waste to developing nations) but the enforced charge makes consumers less eager to toss electronics at a whim. In the current economic situation, consumers are getting more spend conscious and this extra recycling fee is just the nudge consumers need to realize that tossing their last generation ipod for a slightly newer model may actually not be worth it.

The study also cited staggering statistics on the wastefulness of global consumers, noting that Americans buy a new cell phone every 18 months and businesses replace entire fleets of PCs every 4 years. By creating such an immediate demand for new products, consumers effectively instigate the “Osborne Effect,” in which the anticipation for new products actually hurts current product and manufacturer sales. Stanford’s Erica Plambeck argues that by extending lifespan and reducing the demand for arbitrary new products (Woo! 3 megapixel phone instead of 2!), electronics “manufacturers are in less of a rush to introduce new products. Consumers anticipate using a product for longer, and so are willing to pay more for it. Because manufacturers have additional development time, they can make larger leaps in both product capabilities and quality, so the new products coming out are substantially better than the previous generation.”

This truly is a win win scenario for all parties involved, so as usual we here at trade2save hope this research gets the recognition it deserves from both consumers and manufacturers! By extending lifespans of electronics and buying/selling/trading pre-owned we can all do our part to reduce e waste and save ourselves some hard earned cash during this economic situation, which hopefully will permanently change our wasteful habits.

Check out a good summary article by greenbang.com !

Today, online e- gadget blog “engadget” released a fantastic article regarding recycling e waste.

While detailing the engadget’s own absurdly large collection of gadgets accumulated from years of electronics reviews, the article then continues to briefly mention the problem of e waste and detail the recycling policies of many electronic manufacturers’ recycling policies, costs, and respective url links.

We here at trade2save are once again genuinely excited to see the positive example set by large scale electronics websites such as engadget that have a large base of followers. Not only will this article hopefully improve consumer awareness to the importance of electronic recycling, but also will give the tools and resources for consumers to research proper electronic disposal. For those savvier on the global e waste problem, this article serves as an excellent way to track big name electronics companies’ e waste policies.

However, once again Trade2save really must emphasize the importance of buying/selling/trading your used electronics! “engadget” only briefly mentioned this option. Just by looking at the reader comments, many of which asking engadget for their used electronics, it’s obvious that one person’s e-waste is another’s e-treasure.  The constant demand for new products keeps this flow of e waste up, so never forget the option of re-selling your electronics before they become obsolete.