Canada

It's a lot empty marketing.

I don't live in or near a big city centre. I'm in the middle of nowhere in northern Ontario. But I have many friends who live in the Hamiton / Norfolk area in southern Ontario.

I talked to two of my friends recently who were all excited about this because they were able to 'recycle' their old phones and laptops and tablets. I know what devices they were talking about because I had been the tech person years ago to repair, reformat, fix and renew them in the past.

They 'recycled' an old iphone 7 for $10 ... an old thinkpad laptop for $20 and a few other similar items for less than $50 each ... all working devices that are bought and sold used online for about $100 each.

Or devices that could be used, especially laptops that could be formated and installed with Linux and then handed over to a kid or teen who just wants to go online.

I was completely shocked when they told me all this ... I told them I could have bought them and used them myself. I'm even more shocked at the idea that there are thousands of units like this everywhere either being thrown away or sold for nothing.