Every day, tens of thousands of toxic cell phones hit the landfill. But there are great alternatives -- including a couple that can save you money.

By Liz Pulliam Weston

Like many of us, Bill Messett had a cell-phone graveyard.

His old phones weren't actually dead, but he certainly wasn't using them. Each was tossed into a drawer, along with all its chargers and accessories, when he upgraded to the next model every year or two.

Messett, 38, had the vague idea that he would use the most recent discarded model as a backup in case he lost his current phone. The rest, he sensed, had some value, which made him reluctant to part with them.

"I'm kind of packratty in that sense," said Messett, a Miami insurance broker. "I don't like to throw anything away."

Messett found his solution this summer while surfing the Internet. He exchanged two of his newer model phones at RipMobile.com for about $50 in Circuit City gift certificates and donated the rest to RipMobile's affiliated site, CollectiveGood, in return for a small tax deduction.

What to do with old phones is no small issue. The United States alone has more than 200 million cell phone subscribers, and about 5 million of those change carriers each month, which usually means getting a new phone. Even when they don't change carriers, people often change phones to take advantage of improved technology, innovative features and changing fashions.

"The average user gets a new phone about every 18 months," said James Mosieur, CEO of CellForCash.com, "and they end up retiring the old one."

That's left the United States with hundreds of millions of used cell phones, only a fraction of which have been resold, recycled or reused. Californians, for example, throw away 44,000 cell phones every day.

"Eighty percent have not been repurposed," said Seth Heine, founder and CEO of CollectiveGood/RipMobile, who estimates there are 750 million used cell phones floating around the United States. "They literally go into people's drawers."

Such cell cemeteries are a problem for a number of reasons:

Environmental concerns. Eventually, owners may get fed up with the clutter and toss their wireless handsets into the nearest trash can -- the worst possible outcome.

Cell phones and chargers contain a variety of toxic materials that can poison the soil, water and air. Cell-phone manufacturers are trying to make new handsets more environmentally friendly, said Joe Farren, public affairs director for CTIA -- The Wireless Association, by phasing out the use of lead and cadmium. Still, you should assume that anything with a circuit board, like a phone or a computer, is a caldron of caustic stuff and try to keep it out of the landfill.

Security concerns. Today's phones can store all kinds of private data, from passwords to e-mails to that racy photo you snapped of your girlfriend. Anyone who gets his or hands on your old phone could potentially access this stuff.

Security is an issue for those who would sell or donate phones, too. Trust Digital, which provides mobile security software, recently said it gleaned data from nine of 10 smart phones and personal digital assistants the company purchased on eBay as an experiment. Among the 27,000 pages of data the company retrieved were e-mails between a married man and his girlfriend, details about pending corporate deals and bank account numbers and passwords, according to The Associated Press.

The kind of simple reset users often perform to erase data doesn't scrub the information from many devices' flash memory, the company said. The information can be reclaimed using software available on the Internet. A user needs to perform "an advanced hard reset," which is typically outlined in the phone's user manual, to permanently clear the memory.

Eroding value. The older the phone, the less it's typically worth. That means fewer shekels in your pocket if you eventually resell and less value to a charity if you decide to donate. If you want the biggest bang for your buck, you should part with an old phone as soon as you get the new one.

CellforCash.com pays anywhere from $5 to $160 for select models, Mosieur said, with the average seller receiving a check for $27. RipMobile.com typically offers more for similar models, with sellers receiving points good toward gift certificates at CircuitCity.com, Starbucks, MSN Music and Karmaloop clothing, among other vendors. Recently CellforCash.com offered $67 for a Treo 650, for example, while RipMobile.com offered $115. On eBay -- where about 130,000 used phones change hands each month -- a similar model recently went for just under $200.

Another option: Check with your carrier. Wireless providers may offer a discount on a new phone -- typically $25 or so -- when you trade in an older model.

Even if a handset has little cash value, it still can benefit charities. Several posters on the Your Money message board said they donated old phones to battered women's shelters or other nonprofits.

All four major wireless carriers have recycling programs, as do most sites that buy phones, and you can find other drop-off locations through WirelessRecycling.com. These options typically don't provide receipts for tax deductions, however. If that's important, look for sites like CollectiveGood, which recycles phones for charities and which offers tax documentation.

Before you pass on any cell phone, do the following:

• Discontinue your service. If you stayed with the same company or ported your phone number to a new provider, service to the old phone has almost certainly been disconnected. Otherwise, you should call your old provider and make sure service is turned off.

• Do a hard reset on your phone. This may be more complicated than the simple reset often used to erase data when you're having technical problems with the phone. For example, many Treo phones can be reset by pressing a small button on the back, but a hard reset requires pushing four buttons at once. Check your phone's user manual for the procedure. WirelessRecycling.com also offers instructions on its site for common models.

• Talk to your company: Some phones, such as the newest ones running Microsoft's mobile software, can be remotely wiped if the phone is lost or stolen. Other third-party software can delete a phone's information if a specially coded e-mail is delivered to it. Talk to your company about what technology it employs to protect its information and what is available.