AbundaTrade.com: recycle your CDs into wonderful techno-gadgetry

Daniel Sung, editor of Tech Digest, writes:

If you're having a bit of a Spring clean, then I should remind you that you're running on Southern hemisphere time. Now that I've done that, I should point you in the direction of AbundaTrade.com where you can recycle your old CDs into gadgets.

It's all quite simple and actually rather complicated. Every CD is worth one credit assuming it plays and has some sort of current market value. If not, you get either half or a quarter of a credit. If it comes without its box or the artwork, you may get slightly less too.

Box sets get another credit and DVDs, another half. There also appears to be some sort of bonus value if your album is rare in some way. You see where I'm going here.

Thankfully, to simplify the whole thing, you can just enter all the bar codes and album names into one big list, before you send them in, and you'll be told how much you're about to get for each one. So, you're not going to feel cheated if when you trade your limited edition, Cobain-kissed, first press of Bleach for the equivalent of 1p.

Anyway, once you've sorted out what you can bear to part with, you snail mail it over to the States - yeah, starting to sound less appealing, isn't it? - and get issued your credits. Once you've amassed a couple of hundred credits, you can trade them in for some real hardware in the form of DVD players, cameras, electric toothbrushes and what haven't you.

Is it worth it? Not sure. Is it for a good cause? Certainly. Disc waste apparently accounts for 45 tonnes of rubbish each month and that's before you've added on the crap that gets churned out by all the X-Factor winners.

I still think I'd rather sell my old albums and films on eBay, but then, at least with this, you're guaranteed a buyer. So, my Bruce Hornsby & the Range CD may finally find a home.

AbundaTrade (via Popgadget)

This post first appeared on Tech Digest

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