Green Hands USA: America Volunteers

"Best Buy has become America's biggest collector of electronic trash," writes Marc Gunther over at GreenerComputing.com. The chain has a vigorous collection program for old electronics, and if you're looking to get rid of your old computers, TVs, cell phones, etc., Best Buy may be your best bet.

Best Buy will accept just about any old electronics for recycling, and most of the time they'll do it for free. With more than 1,000 stores across the country, that equals a lot of opportunities for you to get rid of your old goods in a responsible manner.

Here's how the program works: You can bring up to two items per day to any Best Buy store. If you're bringing laptop or desktop computers, you need to remove the hard drives yourself (or pay Best Buy $19.95 to do it for you). TVs, computer monitors and laptops cost $10 each to recycle, but you get a $10 Best Buy gift card in return, so that cost disappears pretty quickly.

Best Buy won't take TVs or monitors larger than 32 inches -- sorry -- but you can pay $100 to have them come to your home and take away any larger TVs, or even appliances like refrigerators, washers or dryers. (Got more than one item like this? It's just $20 extra for each additional appliance.)

A lot of stores (such as Staples and Radio Shack) accept electronics for recycling, and some of them may be closer to you than Best Buy. But many stores charge, and others have restrictions about what you can bring in. Best Buy may appears to have the biggest program with the fewest restrictions. Keep that in mind the next time you come across that old TV in your basement and decide to finally do something about it.