Companies who recycle for you

Dell
If you own a Dell PC, no matter how old it is, Dell will take it off your hands and recycle it. If you buy a new Dell PC, Dell will take away your old one away, no matter what brand it is or how old it is.

According to Dell's recycling guidelines, you must remove any personal data from your system and use sturdy corrugated cardboard boxes. A courier will collect the PC on a date you agree with Dell.

Dell also has a service for dealing with old ink cartridges and toner. For more information about that and recycling with Dell in general, click here.

Fonebak
There are over 80 million old mobile phones in the UK and most people leave them in a drawer or worse still, chuck them in the bin. But Fonebak will take your broken mobile phone and recycle every last component.

According to Fonebak, batteries are sent to a specialist in France where materials are extracted and used in items such as power tools, saucepans, pharmaceuticals, new batteries, traffic cones, buckets and furniture.

Handsets are recycled using waste-to-energy incineration. The energy created during this process is used to heat the local village with almost zero emissions.

If you want to send a phone to Fonebak there are over 10,000 free collection points at retailers across Europe (click here for more details), or you can send it to Fonebak directly via a freepost envelope that you should be able to get from its listed partners.

If you want some money for recycling your phone, Envirofone will buy your old phone off you for a set price, as long as it still works. Oxfam also recycle phones and printer cartridges.