Where to take your tired tech, or recycling redux

Everything has its season, and recycling interest is no different.

Maybe it's because everyone is trying to make room in their houses after the holiday gifts pour in. Or maybe it's some sort of New Year's resolution. Or just because everyone is issuing press releases tied to the Consumer Electronics Show in that famous town of excess, Las Vegas.

Regardless, the United States Environmental Protection Agency reports that its Plug-In to eCycling program collected, handled and recycled more than 66.5 million pounds of used tech stuff last year, which was an of 30 percent increase over 2007. The agency equates the environmental impact of these devices to the greenhouse gas emissions released annually by about 15,500 cards.

The program was introduced in 2003 and since then, there have been more than 200 million pounds of electronics collected.

The effort includes partners from pretty much all walks of the electronics industry from retailers including Best Buy and Staples to mobile phone technology companies such as Nokia to pretty much every big name consumer electronics player (LG, Panasonic, Sharp, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba). Dell also gets a thumbs-up in the press release. But so as not to discriminate, here is a complete list of the Plug-In partners.

Load 'em up, folks.