Upgrading your home theater with a gorgeous flat-panel HDTV or treating yourself to a new car stereo is a ton of fun. But what happens to your old gear when you no longer want it?

One dilemma we face as a high-tech society trying to protect our fragile planet is what to do with electronic waste. Discarded electronic devices contain potentially toxic elements like lead and mercury, which can leach from a landfill, seep into groundwater, and end up doing us harm. Not to mention that the mountains of glass, plastic, and metal only grow taller with each TV and computer we drop off at the dump.

In this article, we'll suggest some eco-friendly alternatives to throwing your old gear away. We'll also point you towards some helpful resources, like organizations that actually want your cast-off electronics. And we'll link you to some websites that can help you with electronics recycling, or "eCycling."

Getting a new TV? Read on to find out what to do with your old one.

Re-use: find a new place or purpose for your old electronics

Your first option for dealing with old gear should be finding a way to re-use it. Extending the life of your electronic equipment conserves resources and keeps potentially dangerous components out of landfills.

Keep your gear. Often, the new things you buy just augment your collection of electronics. If you get a new HDTV for your family room, you'll probably want to put the old set in your kitchen or bedroom. You might also keep old gear around to have a spare — for example, if you lose your new cell phone, you'll have a back-up. Finally, it's nice to pass the fun along to family members. When you buy a new stereo, your old system might make a great hand-me-down for your kids.

Recycling is just one option for getting rid of old gear. If it still works, why not find a way to re-use it?

Trade your gear. Freecycle is a cool website with a running list of free items that people in your area either want to give away or want to receive. You can post items you'd like to offer, or even pick up something you'd like to have. So for instance, if you have a DVD player you no longer use, you can add it to the list of items to be donated and pass it along to someone who needs one. Or on the flip side, if you've been looking for a gaming system, you might find one on this site.

Give your gear to charity. Here's a way to get unwanted stuff out of your garage and do a good deed in the process. Many charitable organizations accept donations of electronics, and in turn offer them to needy recipients. Some groups refurbish old equipment before they give it to people who can use it. And when you donate your old gear, remember to ask for a receipt — then use it for a deduction at tax time.

• Give working electronics to charities like Goodwill or the Salvation Army.
• Sign up with a service like ExcessAccess.com that links donors of electronic equipment with needy recipients.
• Donate your old computer equipment to an organization that will redirect it to a school, like StRUT or the National Cristina Foundation.
• Donate your old cell phones, pagers, and PDAs to a group that passes them along to charities and companies for re-use, like The Collective Good.

Sell your gear. There may be times when you want to sell your used electronics (maybe to earn a little cash to buy new gear). In this case, you can post an ad in the newspaper, use an online bulletin board like craigslist.com, or an online auction house like eBay®. You might also check out Rethink Initiative, a coalition of manufacturers, retailers, governmental agencies, and environmental groups brought together by eBay. They can help you assess what your items are worth and even buy them from you outright. This group also gives you tips on how to donate or recycle your used items, in case you decide to go that route.

Turn your gear into a Crutchfield gift card. We've recently formed a partnership with CExchange (Consumer Electronics Exchange) to offer a trade-in service that lets you exchange unwanted electronics for online gift certificates to Crutchfield. It's simple to earn credit — click here to get an appraisal of your item's value, print out the prepaid mailing label, and send in your gear. You'll be reimbursed with a gift card that you can spend on new Crutchfield products.

Recycling your old electronics helps keep toxins out of landfills.

Recycle: salvage valuable materials and help preserve the earth

Your second eco-friendly option for getting rid of old electronics is to recycle them. Even when you're sure your gear has reached the end of the road, it probably still holds some value. Many electronics contain recyclable materials — like glass, plastic, copper wiring, and precious metals — that can be used again. And when you recycle rather than discard your old gear, you avoid adding to the impact of electronic waste, or "e-waste." While the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) doesn't ban private households from dumping electronics, it holds most businesses to regulated standards for electronics disposal because of the potentially harmful effects it can have on the environment. Recycling is the way to go. The question for most people, though, is not why, but where they should recycle.

Find a recycling center in your town. There are a number of websites that can help you find a local electronics recycling center. The sites listed below all let you look up recyclers using your zip code, and they also provide facts and tips about environmental protection.

Sites like myGreenElectronics let you plug in your zip code to find recycling centers in your town.

• myGreenElectronics, created by the CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) identifies green electronic gear, and offers a calculator for determining your energy consumption.
• EPA eCycling, the Environmental Protection Agency's site, talks about governmental regulations and standards related to e-waste.
• Electronic Industries Alliance, a group of electronics manufacturers, includes a list of questions to ask potential recyclers to ensure your e-waste will be handled properly.
• Earth 911, a division of Global Alerts, shares information about recycling events and current environmental topics.

Make use of manufacturer recycling efforts. Many electronics manufacturers offer programs to make it easy for consumers to recycle. You can do a simple online search to learn about the eCycling policies of your favorite brands.

• Sony will accept any of its products at participating centers and recycle them for free. Samsung also provides this service, free of charge with Samsung electronics and for a nominal fee with non-Samsung products.
• Panasonic, Sharp Electronics, and Toshiba teamed up to form the Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Corporation, which holds electronics collection and recycling events around the country.
• Many computer manufacturers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard have eCycling policies that help you turn in your unwanted computer equipment when you buy new gear.

Confirm your potential recycler's ethics. Some recyclers are more socially responsible than others. It's not uncommon for recyclers to send electronics overseas where large portions of the products end up in waste heaps, so we recommend talking to potential recyclers first. Do they have environmental management certification? What percentage of material do they typically recycle, versus what gets thrown away? For a detailed list of considerations, see the Electronic Industries Alliance's list of questions to ask potential recyclers.

Protect yourself from identity theft. Use caution when you donate, sell, or recycle your computer, cell phone, or any other electronic device that contains personal information like credit card numbers and passwords. Erase your personal files first. In this age of identity theft, there are plenty of data destruction companies and free downloads dedicated to overwriting data on your hard drive. For help in clearing names, numbers, and messages from your old cell phone, check out this free cell phone data eraser download. At the very least, choose a firm that offers a data removal service.

What are your ideas?

Hopefully, we've given you some good ideas for handling the electronic gear you no longer need. You can also read about Crutchfield's environmental policy. And we'd love to hear your thoughts and tips on eCycling — write to us at environment@crutchfield.com.