What to do with aging gadgets

I don't like looking at the three bins in my basement that are overflowing with old electronics, much less touching them. So let me make one thing clear: Do as I say, not as I do.

Make a plan to sell, donate or recycle your old electronics now. Consumer Reports points out that electronics don't age well. If you want to get some money out of them, the younger the better. Middle-aged machines can be donated, but ancient ones should be recycled.

Sell it

I plunged my hand into those dusty bins and pulled out five items I thought might be worth something. Then I checked out several sites that buy used electronics.

First I typed in my husband's two old BlackBerrys. Worthless. I was skeptical that our ancient GPS device would be a moneymaker, but then one website offered me between 25 cents and $17 for it, depending on the condition.

Next, I submitted a two-year-old Nikon CoolPix camera and learned two valuable lessons: First, refurbishers want electronics less than three years old. Second, be sure to shop around. One site offered me $15 for the camera, but another offered me $44.

Finally, I entered a Bose bluetooth speaker, unused, in the original box, and hit the jackpot - $67 for a speaker that would go for about $100 new.

Here are several resources for selling used electronics:

• Amazon.com: Amazon buys a wide variety of electronics, plus CDs and video games. In my brief experiment, I found its offers to be among the highest. You're paid via Amazon gift card.

• Best Buy: Best Buy's estimating tool is quick and easy, and with 1,500 stores across North America, you can easily drop off your trade-in rather than messing with shipping.

• BuyBackWorld: This site buys cellphones, tablets, laptops, cameras and more. If you accept the site's offer, it will send you a label for free shipping.

• Gazelle: Gazelle focuses mostly on Apple products. A nice benefit here: You can choose to be paid via Amazon gift card, PayPal or check.

• Target: The big-box store has partnered with an outfit called NextWorth. You can get an easy estimate online, then choose whether to ship your item for free or take it to a participating Target store.

Donate it

Many charities make use of slightly outdated but still-functioning gadgets. Make sure you wipe phones and clear the hard drive on computers before donating them.

Here are several organizations that accept electronics donations:

• American Cell Phone Drive: This organization donates all types of used cellphones - or the proceeds - to local charities, and you can even choose which charity your donation benefits. Just put your phone in a local drop-off box or get a shipping label online.

• Dell Reconnect: This partnership between Dell and Goodwill accepts all brands of computers, plus computer accessories in any condition. If they're usable, Goodwill finds people who need them. If not, Dell recycles them.

• eBay for Charity: Here you actually sell your used electronics, then donate the proceeds to a charity of your choice.

Recycle it

Indiana law prohibits the disposal of electronics in the trash. In Allen County, you can recycle old electronics at OmniSource, 1430 Meyer Road, at a cost of $5 for up to five items per trip. Televisions under 46 inches cost $10 to recycle and televisions over 47 inches cost $20 to recycle. To see what is accepted, go to www.acwastewatcher.org/recycle/electronics-recycling.

• Best Buy: The store also offers recycling options for almost any kind of device with an on button. There are kiosks near store doors for small items, and you can take larger things to the customer service desk.

• Call2Recycle: Here's the answer for rechargeable batteries and cellphones. Type in your ZIP code on the website to find a drop-off location near you.

• TIA E-cycling Central: The Telecommunications Industry Association offers a map where you can click on your state and get a listing of recycling opportunities near you, including those offered by local cities and towns.

The Continent That Contributes The Most To E-Waste Is...

While the world becomes more wired through laptops, tablets and mobile phones, a mountain of electronic waste — or e-waste — is also growing. The greatest contributor to that stock of e-waste is Asia, according to a report published last week from United Nations University.

The report, which studied 12 East and Southeast Asian countries, says the amount of electronic waste in Asia has risen 63 percent in the last five years. A significant proportion of that waste is likely helping to grow an international black market for recycling, says Ruediger Kuehr, the lead author on the report and head of the Sustainable Cycles program at the United Nations University.

Asia is the highest overall producer, though the per capita production of e-waste is highest in the United States, Europe and Oceania. The Americas produced about 26 pounds per inhabitant in 2014. By comparison, Asia produced 8.1 pounds per inhabitant and Africa 3.74 pounds.

An e-waste recycling factory in Guiyu, China.

The expanding Asian middle class is driving e-waste, as is a growing electronics market filled with new gadgets, says Ahsan Shamim, an environmental scientist at the Metropolitan State University of Denver who was not involved with the report. "There is a growing middle class in all those [Asian] countries," he says. "You can see it particularly in mobile phones. The cellphone has grown tremendously in an uncontrollable way."

And new electronic devices, which the report classifies as anything with a cord or a battery, expire far quicker than their predecessors. Gadgets just don't last as long as they used to, as a German environmental agency report found — and many people upgrade within a year or two.

By far, the greatest increase in annual e-waste has been from China, which has seen about a 100-percent rise in the last five years to 6.681 million metric tons.

Some of the e-waste in Asia, particularly in China and Hong Kong, is still being illegally shipped in from around the world, says Kuehr. He says research he conducted found these imports account for "only about 10 to 20 percent" of the total e-waste. But an estimate by MIT showed imports from North American to be more like 20 to 30 percent of e-waste, according to Kuehr.

Kuehr estimates Asia generates about 16 million metric tons of e-waste each year, including imports from elsewhere. (The U.S. produces about 10 million.)

At a "backyard" recycling operation just outside of Jakarta, men place circuit boards in an oven and fire them to smelt out gold and other precious metals.

All these defunct electronics may be feeding a vast, shadowy recycling market. Certain electronic goods like printed circuit boards contain valuable metals like gold and copper. Large and costly industrial processes can recover precious metals with relatively little damage to human health and the environment, but most countries don't have the infrastructure to do that. "The [safe] treatment of these hazardous components is limited to only a handful of sites on the globe. These sites are not in the developing world," Kuehr says.

In the U.S., consumers can take their e-waste to appropriate drop spots. A collection company or municipality then takes it to a facility that will strip everything for parts. Items containing precious metals like circuit boards are shipped to special facilities that can strip gold, palladium and other metals on an industrial scale and with safety precautions.

But people across East and Southeast Asia are extracting those metals as well, with a disregard for formal health and environmental safety procedures.

"What they are doing is very crude methods, mostly," Kuehr says. "They are taking the [circuit boards] and bathing them in an acid bath to get gold or other precious metals and releasing the acid into the water or environment."

Another common procedure is to collect cables and burn the plastic casing away on an open flame to collect copper, Kuehr says. "Many people doing this realize [the danger]," he says. "They have red eyes, headaches, kidney issues, etc. But they are making their living out of it."

Toxins released from this type of processing can cause cancer — and brain, kidney, lung and liver damage. "It turns into this catastrophic thing," Shamim says.

Some of these operations appear to be small-scale recyclers or what Kuehr calls "backyard operations."

Jim Puckett, the executive director of the Basel Action Network, a watchdog organization focusing on hazardous waste, says he recently came across one in Indonesia.

"I did see a very dirty operation outside of Jakarta. Someone was inside their apartment cooking circuitry and extracting gold," he says. "They were breathing this stuff in a closed environment. You go in and immediately get a headache."

Bigger hubs for illegal e-waste processing exist in Hong Kong, Puckett says. His organization has tracked hundreds of electronics across the globe to unregulated plants in Hong Kong and the New Territories of Hong Kong.

But this could change if Hong Kong and mainland China institute stricter regulations on electronics recycling, Puckett and Shamim say.

These larger recycling operations were initially propped up by shipments from places like the EU and the United States — in violation of U.N. conventions for trading hazardous materials, says Puckett.

And now a sizable stream of e-waste is coming in locally.

"That informal sector will be happy to gobble up the domestic waste," Puckett says. And there are no signs that the amount of e-waste or the unregulated market for e-waste recycling is abating any time soon.

Indeed, the search is on for "countries — like Bangladesh, like Myanmar, like Indonesia — where they have the cheapest labor and [weak] regulations," Shamim says.

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E-Waste Recyclers Discuss Future Trends at International Electronics Recycling Congress

Today it is estimated 15 billion things are digitally connected with one another and experts predict an increase to 50 billion devices in the IoT (Internet of Things) sphere by the year 2020. These things include not only computers, tablets and smartphones, but also wearables, consumer electronics and the vehicles we use. However, although this trend offers consumers far greater convenience, it can present recycling companies with a range of difficulties, a fact that was clearly underlined at this year's International Electronics Recycling Congress IERC 2017 in Salzburg.

When designing our products we already take into account reparability and recyclability, explained Jonathan Perry, Producer Responsibility Compliance Consultant at computer manufacturer Dell, at the IERC on January 18.

"The batteries of our laptops are easily removable and we use recycled plastics from recycled electronics in our housing parts, effectively closing the materials loop," Perry said. "Our experts are looking at future design as well as recycling technologies to ensure that our products remain highly recyclable."

But there are other materials, that are causing headaches for recyclers. "Apart from the increasingly complex materials, composites of mixed materials, the known legacy heavy metals and halogenated flame retardants, new additives are also beginning to emerge, such as nanoparticles, presenting recycling enterprises with new challenges," emphasised Dr Mike Biddle, Managing Director of cleantech fund Evok Innovations and Founder and Director of recycler MBA Polymers.

Little research has been done into some of these newest materials with respect to how they behave in traditional recycling processes, he said. It is possible that some of these new materials and additives may also present new dangers with respect to environmental protection and industrial health and safety if not handled with care, particularly during shredding or other size reduction processing. Furthermore, it's often not easy or even possible for the recycler to know which products have additives that might need special handling as these additives are sometimes kept secret as proprietary.

From a commercial standpoint, too, the years to come are also likely to remain challenging. As Dr Biddle explained, partly responsible are three trends that are actually "good for the planet". Firstly, there is downsizing, i.e. making electronic devices smaller and smaller. Secondly, life extension, which means the turnover cycles of many devices are beginning to lengthen. And thirdly, there is a certain general trend towards a sharing economy.

"Particularly in major cities, the idea of sharing is becoming more and more popular," said Biddle. Not every home needs all of the power tools and appliances they have that they perhaps use only a few times a year. Although the sharing economy is a good idea, it definitely also has a downside for e-waste recyclers, as it reduces the number of new devices that need to be produced and therefore also the volume of end-of-life devices that need to be disposed of.

Hence, recyclers again need to position themselves to remain competitive going forward. Above all, they need to make strategic choices in terms of cost savings, innovation, specialisation and internationalisation, stated Norbert Zonneveld, Executive Secretary of the European Electronics Recyclers Association (EERA). "The solution for each type of e-waste treatment operation will be different. Some recyclers are already working on future-proof business models, but there is still a great deal of uncertainty."

The uncertainty is caused by the differences in implementation of the WEEE regulations across Europe and the difficulties with enforcement, said Zonneveld. "This limits the scope of future-proof business models."

Another area of concern is the emergence of two parallel worlds. One of the policy makers that aim for a sustainable society with new ideas and the other of operators who experience not enough support in improving the obligations of existing legislation and where it is difficult to make the best efforts for necessary change.

"The two worlds must come together in order to create stability and mobilise financial resources for making the necessary innovations", stated Zonneveld. "If we do not succeed the race to the bottom will continue where the credibility of regulations is undermined. It is not a new future-business model for recyclers only that is needed, but a holistic improved business model for all stakeholders involved i.e. consumers, producers, take-back systems and recyclers supported by solid harmonized regulations that are enforced. That is what circular economy is about."

The example of Christian Müller-Guttenbrunn shows that e-waste recycling enterprises can still be successful on the market, despite these adverse factors. The Austrian is managing partner and CEO of Müller-Guttenbrunn GmbH. At this year's IERC he was presented with the IERC Honorary Award, which is given at the IERC each year to especially deserving figures from the recycling sector.

"Christian has won this award for his life's work, for the development of new recycling processes and the founding of new cleantech companies in Austria and Eastern Europe in various fields, such as plastics recycling and metal sorting," explained the Steering Committee of the IERC 2017 when presenting Christian Müller-Guttenbrunn with the award. The award also honours the innovative team at the Müller-Guttenbrunn Group, which was largely responsible for introducing new technologies for extracting pollutants from e-waste and upgrading recycling plastics for industrial use.

Gold eases a touch from 2-month high as dollar steadies

Gold prices pulled back only slightly early Wednesday from a finish on Tuesday at their highest level since mid-November as dollar sellers came up for air.

Gold for February delivery GCG7, -0.10% eased 60 cents, or 0.1%, to $1,212.30. The contract settled the previous session at $1,212.90 an ounce after trading as high as $1,218.90.

Silver for March delivery SIH7, -0.10% fell less than a cent, or 0.1%, to $17.14 an ounce.

The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.38% , which was hammered a day earlier following comments from President-elect Donald Trump, was trading up 0.4% Wednesday. Gold and the dollar typically move inversely since a richer greenback cuts demand for the dollar-priced metal from buyers using other currencies.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Friday, Trump said the dollar, which touched a more than 14-year high about two weeks ago, has gotten "too strong," as China keeps its own yuan weaker. He said the dollar's strength is impeding the competitiveness of U.S. companies.

Read:Trump is waving adios to the longstanding 'strong dollar policy'

Don't miss:Gold has a lot going for it this year - and it's not only because of Trump

"The newswires were quick to attribute the move to comments from [Trump], who said the greenback is 'too strong' ... In fact, it started some time earlier and seems to mark the return of 'Trump trade' unwinding as the dominant market theme after it had been briefly overshadowed by 'hard Brexit' fears at the start of the week," said Ilya Spivak, currency strategist with Daily FX. On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May said the U.K. would move ahead to vote on a clean cut with the European Union but hoped to negotiate trade deals.

Economic data and Federal Reserve chatter could keep financial markets busy ahead of the U.S. presidential inauguration on Friday.

On tap today: readings on consumer prices at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time, and on industrial production and capacity utilization at 9:15 a.m. Eastern, all for December. The National Association of Homebuilders's housing market index for January follows at 10 a.m. Eastern, while the Fed's Beige Book is due at 2 p.m. Eastern.

The consumer prices report should be closely watched. Economists polled by MarketWatch are forecasting a monthly rise of 0.2% for core inflation and 0.3% for headline inflation.

"A similar upside surprise this time around may echo December's strong wage growth data, rekindling Fed rate-hike speculation and weighing on gold," said Spivak. Nonyielding gold tends to fall out of favor in a rising-rate climate.

Investors will also be watching a speech from Fed Chairwoman Yellen on the goals of monetary policy, due at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. Ahead of that, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will make an economic-themed speech at 11 a.m. Eastern.

In ETF trading, the SPDR Gold Trust GLD, +1.44% rose 1.4% premarket, the iShares Silver Trust SLV, +2.13% added 2% and the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF GDX, +2.73% gained 2.7%.

Gold Becomes Overbought; What To Do Now?

Gold is seriously challenging the crucial resistance zone of $1200-$1220.

Daily gold futures price chart show that it is overbought.

Should you be worried?

Gold (NYSEARCA: GLD) is seriously threatening to violate the resistance zone of $1200-$1220 with more than 1 percent in gains. At the time of writing this article, the yellow metal was trading at $1214.8 per ounce after having tested an intraday high of $1218.9.

Source: Novi.ba

In my last article on gold published on January 5 titled Gold Is About To Face Its First Major Test On The Rebound, I had discussed why I expected the precious metal to hit the resistance and eventually climb the hurdle. At that time, gold futures were at $1183 per ounce.

A significant contribution to the rally has come from the weakness in U.S. dollar (NYSEARCA: UUP). The greenback has corrected more than 3 percent from its recent high of 103.82.

Source: TradingView

Bulls are clearing the hurdles in front of them, one at a time. First, they crossed the 30-day SMA, then they conquered the 50-day SMA, and now they are aiming to take out the first crucial resistance. Beyond this zone of $1200-$1220, the precious metal should jump to $1250-$1260.

Source: TradingView

But, some investors are worried that Aurum has rallied too fast and is overbought. They are not incorrect; the 14-day RSI and the 14-day MFI values indicate that gold has indeed entered the overbought territory. But, this isn't a reason enough to sell, not at least for the long-term investors. The short-term traders can definitely consider booking some profits.

The long-term investors have nothing to be concerned about. Barring some minor profit-booking, gold should do well to cross over the resistance, failing which it risks falling once again to $1100 or so. The weekly gold futures price chart below clearly indicates that the yellow metal is rising after retesting the multi-year resistance trendline.

Source: TradingView

The fear of gold being overbought takes a strong beating when looking at the 14-week RSI and the 14-week MFI values of 47.6967 and 41.1337 respectively. Instead, these readings suggest that there is ample room to run in the coming weeks as well.

Gold is doing well to dislodge the bears as it crosses each resistance one-by-one. While stating this, it is hard not to be reminded of this famous quote from the legendary investor Warren Buffett,

I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.

I am not expecting the positive mood to be spoiled anytime soon. The correction in the greenback may end in the near future as it also nears the oversold territory, but that would cause nothing more than minor pullbacks in gold.

So, long-term investors who got in near $1140 do not have to book profits now. Only the short-term traders should consider reducing their exposure.

Note: I cover several stocks in different sectors as well as S&P 500, crude oil, gold and silver, U.S. dollar, etc. So, if you liked this update, and would like to read more of such informative articles, please consider hitting the "Follow" button above. Thank you for reading!

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

The silver market performed reasonably well in 2016, with the price of the precious metal picking up more than $2 to close the year at $15.88 per ounce

The silver market performed reasonably well in 2016, with the price of the precious metal picking up more than $2 to close the year at $15.88 per ounce. That in turn helped boost the prospects for silver-tracking investments like the iShares Silver Trust (NYSEMKT:SLV). But as much as investors appreciated the gains, they were a far cry from the highs above $20 per ounce that silver posted earlier in the year. Looking forward to the coming year, investors want to see the price of silver in 2017 climb back toward the $20 mark, but those who follow the silver market aren't sure just how much progress the metal can make. Below, we'll look at what could move the price of silver in 2017.

Image source: Getty Images.

What will move silver prices in 2017?

The main difficulty that many people have in assessing the silver market is that it acts like a hybrid, showing characteristics of both precious and industrial metals. On one hand, even at prices that are less than 2% of the price of gold, silver is still roughly 100 times as costly as copper, putting silver in a gray area in the middle of the price spectrum. Historically, traders have seen silver as a precious metal, and many mines produce both gold and silver, further associating them in the minds of investors.

Yet in large part, silver is much more subject to supply and demand considerations than gold. Silver gets used in a wide variety of industrial applications, and that subjects it to the normal demand fluctuations of the global economic business cycle. In addition, mined supply of new silver plays a role in setting its price, along with the willingness of those who have stockpiled silver for investment or personal use to bring it back into the market when prices rise.

Even with those countervailing factors, silver traded largely in line with its precious metal counterparts during 2016. After a big gain linked to an early year stock market decline in 2016 and prospects for a potential collapse in the energy markets, silver climbed to its highest levels by mid-year. However, the final boost from the U.K. Brexit vote to leave the European Union didn't lead to the economic chaos that some had predicted. By the second half of the year, excitement about silver waned, and fears of higher interest rates sent silver prices down more than $4 per ounce from their highest levels of the year.

2017 price projections on silver (per ounce)

Citi Research

$15.50

HSBC

$18.75

ABN Amro

$15.40

UBS

$18.60

BMO

$17

Data source: Analyst projections via Kitco.

As you can see above, there are two distinct camps among those following the silver market. Some believe that better conditions in the market will lead to substantial gains, while others see the current malaise lasting throughout 2017.

The bullish argument for silver

Most of those who are bullish about silver prices in 2017 point to silver's capacity to decouple from the precious metals markets. In particular, excitement about silver's industrial demand could be the driver for higher prices in the minds of some.

Helping to support that view are the latest calls from President-elect Donald Trump for greater spending on infrastructure and construction. If the U.S. moves forward with initiatives that are successful in driving greater activity on those fronts, then the use of silver could increase. At the same time, many expect that silver mining activity will fall in 2017 from year-ago levels, continuing a longer-term trend. Even with prices having bounced from their lowest levels, they're still not high enough to make miners feel particularly enthusiastic about boosting production.

The bearish argument for silver

However, those who are negative on the prospects for silver prices in 2017 point out that the factors that traditionally hurt precious metals markets are poised to become stronger during the year. Late-year dollar strength in 2016 has typically pushed gold and silver prices lower. Moreover, with many expecting multiple interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve in 2017, the costs of holding positions in silver bullion are likely to rise from their rock-bottom levels of the past several years.

Also, the supply and demand factors that theoretically drive silver prices haven't always matched up in the short run. Supply deficits in production of mined silver have been regular occurrences for most of the past 15 years, but that hasn't prevented the silver market from having wild volatility swings over that time period.

What to expect from silver in 2017

Just about the only certainty with silver prices in 2017 is that they're likely to feature substantial moves in both directions, as investors try to figure out changes in geopolitical and macroeconomic factors affecting the market. That might stop the forward momentum that silver generated in 2016, but it could also create opportunities for those who have higher hopes for silver's prospects in the long run.

Levels of e-waste soar in Asia as gadgets become affordable, UN say

Levels of electronic waste are rising sharply across Asia as higher incomes mean hundreds of millions of people can afford smartphones and other gadgets, according to a UN study.

The amount of e-waste in Asia has risen by 63% in five years, a report by the United Nations University said, warning of the need to improve recycling and disposal methods across the region to prevent serious environmental and health consequences.

Ruediger Kuehr, the report’s co-author and the head of UNU’s sustainable cycles programme, said: “For many countries that already lack infrastructure for environmentally sound e-waste management, the increasing volumes are a cause for concern.”

For many years, China and other Asian countries have recycled discarded electronics from wealthier countries in rudimentary and often unsafe factories.

But the report said Asia has become a major source of e-waste due to increasingly affluent consumers buying electronic items including phones, tablets, refrigerators, computers and televisions.

China’s generation of e-waste more than doubled between 2010 and 2015, the period of the study, according to the report.

Hong Kong generated the highest amount of e-waste in Asia in 2015, an average of 21.7kg (3.4st) per person.

Singapore and Taiwan created just over 19kg per person in 2015.

Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines were among the lowest e-waste generators, with an average of about 1kg per person.