I boycotted Staples ages ago when they pulled some used car dealer ass bullshit on me.
My laptop was busted, but I had an extended warranty with the company. I come in one day and they say they’re sorry, because they can’t find any record of my warranty in their system. So I say to them.
“That’s okay, I’ll buy a new laptop then.”
The lady behind the desk’s eyes light up and I can hear the change in her tone… She’s more than happy to show me to the back…
I start to leave the store, she asks me where I’m going. I tell her “Best Buy’s right across the street isn’t it?”
She immediately panics, runs back to her computer, and is suddenly happy to honor my warranty with her most sincere apologies for not noticing it earlier.
I was floored, I was angry and bluffing, I was just going to go home and play Xbox to get my mind off things. The bitch actually tried to con me with a fast one, I was speechless when she “suddenly found the warranty” and basically swore to myself that I would NEVER shop there again.
And so far, the only reason I have ever gone back is because it’s the only store that sells CD-Rs anymore
I slept on Staples for awhile until I had to go to them a few times. It’s pretty cool, you can send mail through them and I can print stuff with them since I infrequently need to do so and it’s much cheaper/less hassle then buying a printer. Not to mention saves me physical space in my house lol. They also help some local stores around me which I think is cool.
FYI this appears to be the US Staples only. In Canada (or at least Ontario), Goodwill accepts electronics recycling, now that Staples has shut that down.
lots of people view the computer landscape as PCs and Macs. nevermind that Macs are pretty much always personal computers (as in computer hardware designed for use by a single individual at a time; non-server hardware)
This is a really great thing. My town doesn’t do ewaste programs and we had some UPS batteries to get rid of a few months ago. We ended up giving them to one of our parents in the city to take to their program
Why would you just set it in front of Goodwill? That’s littering!
You should go donate it directly in closed boxes so they can’t just ignore it on the sidewalk. Plus, they’ll probably even give you a coupon for your next visit.
Wow that’s a useful list of things they accept for recycling. It’s a total PITA to recycle anything electronics related in my city especially stuff like computers & hard drives let alone cables. That may end up getting me inside a Staples more often than once every year or two so maybe their plan is going to work.
Does anyone know some of the finer grained details of this recycling program? I’m not exactly a regular Staples customer, but I definitely have some shit that is better off recycled. Like no chance of fixing a few phones I’ve found smashed in the road…
For at least the last five years, the Staples in the Boulder 29th St Mall takes any electronics you have for recycling. The process is you hand it to them or drop it in a box they have sitting there.
Unsure if this applies to other Staples, but at least that one in Boulder, 29th St Mall, does this easy
Legitimately, i was floored when I learned how much bestbuy charges for recycling electronics (smart tv, specifically). Like motherfucker the precious metals in the components alone should be enough for you why are you charging me a benjamin on top of that??
I figured out how to recycle it through my city, instead. Massive pain in the ass to do, but at least they didn’t CHARGE ME
There’s a local recycling company near me, and anything like that (including monitors) has a $25 surcharge to take it, but they take everything else free of charge. It was great when I did hardware support, because we could just huck most customers’ old gear at them and it got properly handled.
You just smash’m up to get the PCBs out of them, ship’m across the world to a 3rd world country, where you pay children to douse them in chemicals and light them on fire, then dig through the toxic much to fish out the metal nuggets to send out for processing.
I worked for Staples in my college years. They used to throw away bales upon bales of recyclable products every day while pumping up their image as a green place to shop or whatever. Maybe it was just the management of that specific store. Anyway, good on Staples for offering recycling services.
Unfortunately this could be the case and the cynic in me feels this could be a green washing scheme like you said.
But hopefully with what some cities are doing now with charging the full economic and social cost of blue & black bin programs to companies and manufactures this could start having a real good impact.
Specially since most manufactures shift the cost of recycling and trash to communities and tax payers. Instead this cost should be internalised by the manufacturer and retailer.
Hopefully this kind of shift promotes better sustainable packaging, and prevents things like planed obsolescence and fast fashion.
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