The Doppler Effect

While cleaning my room last week, I happened upon this interesting little gizmo. No it wasn’t a flux capacitor or a time machine. I had in fact found my first MP3 player dating back to the KaZaA era. By today’s standards, the specifications are laughable (128MB internal capacity expandable to 256MB with additional SmartMedia card), but also a testament to how dramatically Apple’s iPod changed the digital music scene. This is especially true considering I purchased this generic brand (who’s ever heard of IM Sports outside of high school?) player over a Sony Mini-Disc player. I’m glad I followed my avoid-Sony policy as Mini-Disc joined the ranks of Betamax, and ATRAC amongst other defunct formats.

At any rate, with my two iPods, such my old-school MP3 player is rendered useless beyond what its age would suggest. But calling this garbage hardly seems fitting, not only because the device is fully functional, but also because it contains components which would make any tree hugger go nuts if it ended up in a landfill. For these reasons, I usually try selling my old electronics and so far that’s worked pretty well. But if you’re too lazy to go through the work of selling, you can still turn your e-junk into cash with websites such as Flipswap, Second Rotation and Costco’s recycling program. They all provide free shipping labels to send your stuff to their processing centers. Now you can get green and be green. In fact, Flipswap will even plant a tree for your trade-in. As someone who’s done it before, I can say that the process is dead simple. I’m sure there are other similar programs out there, so if you know any, post them in the comments.