Your Step-by-Step Guide to Recycling Old Laptops and Printers

We've all got that "shelf of shame" in our homes -- a graveyard of ancient laptops, tangled power bricks and printers that haven't seen an ink cartridge since 2010. Letting this e-waste sit in your house is a waste of space, but most people assume that recycling tech requires a trip to a waste facility in the middle of nowhere. The reality is much simpler.

Major retailers like Best Buy and Staples have become drop-off hubs for your digital junk. You can walk into a store with a dead PC or a clunky old scanner and hand it over for free, regardless of where you bought it. Some of these places will even throw you a bone -- like a discount on new gear or a trade-in credit ...