What to do with old chargers.

Sort it first

Reuse ranks above recycling: a working 65W USB-C charger has years of life left, while a 5W USB-A cube from 2014 is not worth the shelf space. The exception is anything showing the failure signs in the heat guide — a brick that has buzzed, browned or smelled should be retired, not passed on.

Why not the household bin

Two reasons. Materials: the transformer windings and plug pins are copper and brass, the shell is recoverable plastic, and the board carries small quantities of lead-tin solder and brominated flame retardants worth keeping out of landfill leachate. Recovery is straightforward once the item reaches an e-waste stream, and impossible once it is in general waste.

Second, fire. Lithium cells crushed in a collection truck or sorting line can enter thermal runaway, and waste operators report a rising count of these fires — a leading cause of fires at material recovery facilities. That is why power banks, vapes and battery-containing devices are never acceptable in the general bin or the kerbside recycling bin, however small.

Where to take them

In the US, roughly half the states have electronics recycling laws and several prohibit electronics from household trash outright, so the binding rule is local — your county or city solid-waste page is the authority. The options, in order of convenience: national retailers with in-store take-back bins, municipal household hazardous waste and e-waste collection days, dedicated recycling centres, and manufacturer mail-back programmes (several major brands accept their own hardware free). Battery drop-off boxes in hardware and office-supply stores exist specifically for cells and power banks.

In the UK and EU, WEEE rules put the obligation on retailers: shops above a size threshold must take back old electricals, and many accept a charger without a matching purchase. The crossed-out wheelie-bin symbol moulded into the housing marks an item as covered — it appears on almost every charger sold since 2005.

Buying so it happens less often

The lowest-waste charger is the one you do not replace. Two habits do most of the work: buy one multi-port unit sized for everything you own rather than a brick per device — the arithmetic is in the desk setup guide — and buy certified hardware, since counterfeits fail early and end up in the drawer. Avoiding counterfeit listings and what UL and ETL certify cover that. If you are replacing something specific, matching a replacement stops you buying the wrong thing twice; the guide index has the rest.

One more thing: keep one good USB-C cable per device and retire the rest. Cables are the highest-volume item in the drawer and the easiest to recycle, since copper recovery is well established — but only if they reach a stream that can process them.

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