No charger lasts forever. At some point, you may notice nothing happens when you plug the cable into your smartphone. Maybe you can even see the wires poking out. But even if you treat your cables perfectly, there’s the chance your next phone won’t even support it.
Your old Lightning cables won’t work with the iPhone 15
Take the iPhone 15, for example: The E.U. effectively forced Apple to switch from Lightning to USB-C. While that might be good for unifying all your devices under one cord type, it does mean your Lightning chargers will be no good going forward.
If you’re like me, you’ve had iPhones and Lightning-compatible Apple devices since the cable’s introduction in 2012, so you might have a lot of these things lying around. Some might connect to USB-A and some more recent ones may connect to USB-C. You might even still have some Lightning-based devices that will support the cable. (I, for one, won’t be rushing out to upgrade my AirPods Pro to the new USB-C edition.)
But let’s say you don’t have any Lightning devices following an upgrade to the iPhone 15. What are you supposed to do with these old Lightning chargers?
Don’t throw away old chargers
If you said, “throw them away away,” you wouldn’t be alone. You’d be wrong, but you’d be wrong alongside a lot of other people. As it turns out, you’re not supposed to throw away old Lightning chargers, or any old cables for that matter. It’s a common misconception, which is probably why over half of respondents to this Reddit survey said the same.
Chargers, after all, are made up of plastic, metal, and other elements that won’t be broken down in nature (or a landfill). Chucking e-waste in the trash is terrible for the environment, and you should avoid it whenever you find you no longer need a charger. Instead, you should be recycling those cables like any other technology. But it’s not as obvious as it sounds.
How to recycle old chargers
You can’t throw your Lightning cable in your recycling bin and call it a day. While recycling standards vary depending on the town or city where you live, they’re unlikely to accept your chargers alongside your plastic bottles and yogurt cups.
Luckily, there are plenty of recycling options when it comes to getting rid of your old cables. First, you can drop off any cords or wires at any Best Buy store and they’ll recycle them on your behalf. You can even mail them in if you don’t have a store near you. Alternatively, you can use Earth911’s search locator to find a nearby e-waste recycler which might strip out the metal components of your cables for recycling. Apple will also happily take your cables for recycling (and sell you a new one while they’re at it).
If your cables still work and you simply don’t need them anymore, Goodwill stores will accept cords as donations. Lastly, you can search for a nearby STEM program and contact them to find out if they’ll accept your wires. Chances are they might accept even accept older, outdated wires for educational purposes, as CNET notes.