I must have - I must have now - the instinctive response when Mummy wheeled your stroller past the Hershey aisle. The same instinct is alive and kicking as thousands line the streets today for the latest in electronics gluttony- the 3G iPhone.(SUPER-SIZE ME!)The iPhone is a phenomenal product - no question - and would have remained a phenomenal product unchanged for another few years  - but now it’s just another piece of junk pushed aside for a spanking new upgrade - the 3G iPhone.Let’s face it - features like GPS and 3G could have been included in iPhone 1.0 but were held back to (1) Create further record sales for a later model and (2) ensure that the original iPhone would be perceived to be obsolete as quickly as possible.It’s a prime example of the marketing employed by companies like Apple who have deliberately instigated the e-waste crisis. I call it deliberate because Apple and the other electronics giants are fully aware that greater amounts of e-waste is a direct result of their drive to make previous models obsolete as quickly as they can.How different is the new iPhone 3G from the iPhone 1.0? Surprisingly, not very much. Apart from having 3G and GPS.What else is new?

• Your inbox will be the same and act just as fast and soon you’ll be able to download software to make your iPhone 1.0 email faster and more secure.

• Your old iPhone supports ActiveSync just like the new one.

• Your old iPhone supports all the new enterprise functionality of the Blackberry.
• Plus you’re old iPhone (it’s just crazy to call this thing old) is going to be able to capitalize on all the new applications pouring out thanks to the long awaited SDK release (Software Development Kit).
• 3G streaming video will be faster, but none of the stuff I love to watch on YouTube will be there because of copyright protection - and of course in a Wifi area you’ll have no advantage over iPhone 1.0.

Oh yes- the old iPhone is about 2 mil thinner, so the 3G will feel a little bulkier in your pocket.I find 3G still sluggish compared to the broadband speed I’m used to in most Wifi Cafes… for a good all round review go to engadget.  A better alternativeMy advice is to stay with your original iPhone - if you really have to have the 3G model because you totally rely on the Edge for internet connectivity and not Wifi then at least wait 2 or 3 weeks until some mint pre-owned 3Gs are on the market.Then just sell your old iPhone and upgrade. This way you won’t be adding another new cell phone onto the market. Every time you buy a new cell phone you’re adding another onto the e-waste pile - and only 12.5% of that will be recycled.Later in the year we’re going to start trade 2 save. We’ll happily accept the iPhone 1.0 in graded conditions and sell pre-owned 2.0 and 1.0 iPhones in graded conditions, from like new, very good and good (all with a 1 year warranty). By trading in this way you’ll be able to upgrade without breaking the bank and without creating more e-waste.What’s more, trade 2 save will be a pre-owned electronics market place, where you can trade-in all your used electronics in working condition including all electronics, accessories, computer hardware, laptops, PCs, Gaming, Movies and entertainment.

WALL-E is one of the better animations to come out of the Disney Pixar creative collaboration.

It’s a heart warming tale of WALL-E, a Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class unit. The lovable robot manages to stay functional after 700 years of service by recycling bits of other WALL-E robots which have perished over the centuries of cleaning up the Earth.

A thousand years earlier in the 21st Century, the Buy ‘N’ Large corporation had (miraculously) taken over every single service on Earth, including the government. They are to blame for the rampant over production and subsequent pollution that ensues - turning Earth into a wasteland of e-waste and junk - void of humans, who generations later, remain living lethargically on a space cruiser many light years away.

The Buy ‘N’ Large corporation is a more acceptable bad guy to portray than the dozens of consumer brands who benefit from today’s throw away society.

A more realistic landscape (the one we see today in Asia) would be the mountains of e-waste filled with broken Sony plasma screens, Panasonic DVD players and colored iPod shells. This later imagery would never have gotten passed Disney’s largest stock holder.

The real message to be taken from this summer’s No. 1 blockbuster is that most of what makes up e-waste today is non recyclable and has absolutely nowhere to go.

    only about 12% of the e-waste we produce is recycled. The rest will joint the mountains of e-waste which one day might challenge the Himalayas.

We see the pictures of Chinese villagers picking their way through circuit boards and recovering the poisonous alloys and by-product, but this only makes up about 12% of the junk that we ship to them. The rest stays strewn across the countryside on e-waste dumps which closely resemble the make believe ones depicted in WALL-E.

If the electronics we produce today are largely non recyclable, why is the drive towards recycling them so prevalent, when a drive to re-use them or make them last longer goes relatively unheard?

So long as the green back is more powerful than the green lobby, more funds will be driven towards green perception than green reality - The burying of the National Computer Recycling Act is testament to this. Only when every bit of electronics is recyclable (and this includes Xbox, Playstation, Wii too) will we be able to start slowing the acceleration of e-waste dumping.

Until the Utopian vision of green electronics magically appears - which will be decades away at best - consumers need to look at other ways to lower the rising tide of e-waste: Buy a pre-owned or used computer, digital camera, cell phone or any electronics device when you can.

When you buy something new you add to the e-waste pile - when you buy used you don’t.

Sell pre-owned or used as well. If you don’t use your old computer, DVD player, cell phone, digital camera or camcorder any more, trade it in or sell it pre-owned  or used so that someone else will buy it from you instead of buying it new and adding to e-waste themselves.

For additional trust, buy used off of a pre-owned retailer who is willing to give a one year warranty on your purchase. That way, you have as much confidence as buying new.

With companies like trade 2 save launching to give consumers more confidence in the pre-owned and used consumer electronics market, we hope that more consumers will take matters into their own hands and prevent the e-waste catastrophe so beautifully animated in WALL-E.

For those of us who don’t enjoy the eBay experience and just want to trade-in our old laptops for an upgrade, Sony Style has the answer. You can trade in your old laptop or desktop using their online calculator to get credit towards any new purchase at Sony Style.

The trade and save format is proving very successful at Sony and fits in perfectly with their environmental program.

Sony are keen to voice their environmental credentials…

     Sony does not want anything to go to waste which could potentially harm the environment if improperly disposed. At the same time, Sony wants to make recycling beneficial and convenient for you. That’s why we offer the Sony Notebook Trade-in Program. We’ll not only dispose of your notebook in an environmentally safe manner, we’ll also give you credit towards a new VAIO PC.

So we took them at their word. I have an old Pentium 3 Dell Laptop so was keen to learn how much trade-in value they’d give me for the laptop they were going to responsibly dispose of for me.

Strangely I got this response:

     We are sorry but your notebook is ineligible for trade-in

But I thought that…

     Sony does not want anything to go to waste which could potentially harm the environment” and that you “not only dispose of (my) notebook in an environmentally safe manner, (you’ll) also give (me) credit towards a new VAIO PC.

Oh well. I suppose my old laptop is just too old to be recycled.

But hang on, I’ve also got this mint condition used once IBM Core 2 Duo with 2 GHz, 200 Gig Hard Drive, Blue tooth, DVD +-

Ah… Sony’s Value Calculator is much more interested in disposing of this terrible piece of unwanted e-waste. In fact, they’ll even give me a whopping $413 trade-in credit for it!!

That’s amazing! Because according to eBay, I should be getting $1650 for it used! Thank you Sony - We’re really happy you’re heart is in the right place when it comes to the environment.

I wonder if some of the laptops on eBay are actually from Sony Style? What a business! 400% mark up for what they buy them for from Joe public. They only make 15% mark up on new stuff. They should go into the trade-in business. Oh yes - they have.

Of course, Sony’s trade and save venture will soon be having a little unwanted competition in the form of trade 2 save, where people will be able to trade-in their used laptops and other consumer electronics for decent prices. They’ll be able to buy and sell in the same online store or trade for an upgrade. Trade 2 save will only buy, sell or trade used or pre-owned products in graded conditions, including computer hardware, consumer electronics, cell phones, gaming and movies. Because trading pre-owned consumer electronics and their consumables is a sure fire way of tackling e-waste.

I find it amazing that a company like Sony can so proudly brag about their trade in / re-cycling program on the one hand, and yet refuse to take anything in that they can’t sell on eBay for 4 times the price!

Some of the poorest communities in developing countries are swamped by e-waste from the west. This is old news. But so too is legislation to abolish this growing trade.

Back in 2005, members of Congress formed an “e-waste working group,” hoping to jump-start a federal recycling system to curb the e-waste traffickers. The head of that group, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), proposed the National Computer Recycling Act.

It was designed to establish a grant and fee program through the Environmental Protection Agency to encourage and promote the recycling of used computers and to promote the development of a national infrastructure for the recycling of used computers, and for other purposes.
To help fund the national recycling program a fee would be taken from the retail sales of certain electronics.

Good news for the environmentalists, but not so for the consumer electronics giants who would foot the ‘recycling tax’.

The act soon ran into ‘implementation issues’, and three years later is still under review (along with the Palmer’s Act of 1864 which requires Amish to dress more fashionably).

Individual States have tried to follow European Legislation

Thirteen states including California, Washington, Maine, and Minnesota have agreed in principal to e-waste laws and support among other states is growing, in addition to new research initiatives.

In September 2007, the Green Chemistry Research and Development Act was proposed, looking to authorize $165 million over three years for research into products that reduce or eliminate hazardous waste. Sadly, however, the bill still awaiting a Senate vote, while lobbyists bide their time picking at its seams.

The Europeans got there in the end

Considering the sheer bureaucratic complexities of the European Union, after many delays, they did manage to set in stone the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations governing the safe disposal of IT equipment. The new legislation went into effect July 1st, 2007.

Under the new law, electrical and electronic producers, rebranders and importers must pay for the responsible disposal and recycling of their goods. (It’s a bit like getting wriggly’s to chisel all their chewing gum off of pavements).
The first of its kind, but certainly not the last, the WEEE directive is setting the stage for future legislation.
With the high cost of disposing e-waste safely, it’s hardly surprising that the problem is still growing at an alarming rate - lower environmental standards and working conditions in China, India, Kenya and elsewhere have led to an exponential influx of e-waste, often entering through lucrative illegal channels.

The majority of e-waste ends up being broken down by ill-equipped laborers working under hazardous conditions.

A typical router or switch may contain more than 2 percent lead by weight and up to 38 separate chemical elements.

The Simplest solutions are often the most easily overlooked

In an effort to combat e-waste, reuse has become a new priority in the consumer market. Organizations including Apple, Dell, HP, and Sony are already instigating change by establishing trade-in and recycling programs ahead of legislation. With the shortening of product life cycles, consumers can also buy, sell or trade used consumer electronics and computers at trading portals. By doing this, a product’s lifespan can be increased by up to 4 times, significantly lowering the amount of ewaste heading for China.

              Gartner estimates the energy from manufacturing, distribution and use of information and communications technology emits approximately 2 percent of total global carbon dioxide, equal to the emissions from the entire airline industry.

Gartner analyst Simon Mingay estimates that one in every dozen computers used worldwide is a “secondary computer,” and nearly 152.5 million used systems are shipped annually. The research firm predicts that both the home and professional markets for secondary PC’s will continue to see growth in the next several years, fueled by better performance, longer system life and recycling legislation that would give companies greater incentives for reuse and recycling.

Buying pre-owned hardware is not only a cost effective way to reduce IT costs, it is also perfectly aligned with e-waste reduction.

Organizations of all kinds can benefit from reuse, in ways that tangibly affect the bottom line and intangibly help save the environment.

In order for this to happen, more pressure needs to be implemented to enforce the kind of environment which would make widespread reuse both attractive and feasible.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act was originally passed in 1970 to illiminate the ill effects brought about by organized crime.
Since the 1980’s, however, civil lawyers have taken advantage of section 1964(c) of the RICO Act, which allows civil claims to be brought by any person injured in their business or property by reason of a RICO violation.

Is eBay, by making so much of its income by selling known counterfeit and/or stolen goods, in fact a criminal conspiracy under the terms of the RICO act?

Scott Augenbaum, supervisory special agent for the FBI Cybercrime Fraud unit in Washington, D.C. is adament on the subject “The vast majority (of conterfeit IT products in circulation) is still being purchased from gray market, uncertified resellers that unload their goods on eBay at extremely low prices,”

       Counterfeit products account for nearly 10% of the overall IT products market.

Counterfeit Cisco equipment, known in the industry as “Chisco” (counterfeit Cisco equipment originating in China) are being created at an alarming rate. According to a white paper by AGMA and consulting company KPMG, counterfeit products account for nearly 10% of the overall IT products market. That’s $100 billion in fake memory sticks, drives, monitors, networking gear and other IT products in circulation.

China’s policies concerning intellectual property infringement and state-sanctioned piracy have become a growing global concern. Tremendous growth of the network hardware secondary market, as well as an upturn in Chinese manufacturing have combined to push these fears to new heights. The ease at which counterfeits can be sold on eBay may be helping to encourage growth in a market that eBay is certainly making money from. A question which must be asked is how much of these profits are being redirected to help fight this growing internet phenomenon?

As a result, network managers are often avoiding pre-owned hardware from eBay simply because it is too difficult to identify counterfeit equipment. Unless products can be checked by a third party, counterfeit fraud on eBay will continue. An alternative for network managers wanting to save money and have the confidence to buy used or pre-nwed is to buy off of trading portal where products are checked and tested by professionals who can attest to them being genuine. At trade 2 save, consumers will be able to buy sell or trade their computers, cameras, cell phones, games and movies. When they sell them to trade 2 save, every product they buy is tested and give a one year warranty before being sold on. Spotting counterfeits at trade 2 save will be a top priority in procedure and training.

One of the worst offenders on the eBay site, the computer software category is unfortunately littered with counterfeit and pirated goods. Electronic entertainment media of all kinds is commonly sold illegally on eBay, whether in the form of pirated/unlicensed copies, or in the form of import or export-restricted goods.

In Wisconsin 6 defendants were sentenced in April for selling a combined total of more than $25,000,000 worth of counterfeit computer software on eBay.
eBay may well have profited substantially from these transactions and we have not been able to ascertain whether or not eBay has returned these fund to either law enforcement agencies or the many thousands of eBay buyers who were defrauded in good faith.

It’s what we’re being told to do by every consumer electronics institution on the block, from Best Buy to Apple. But what actually happens to that monitor or PC once we drop it off and slip back into our Prius’s, tutting smugly at passing Hummers?

Well don’t feel so green greenies, because although your PC will no longer end up in a landfill somewhere in Alabama, it WILL be sold by the tonnage (for a healthy profit I might add) to the highest bidding e-waste merchant, who’ll then pile it high on a gas guzzling tanker to be shipped off to Hong Kong. From there it will be resold to another trader until it eventually ends up on the swelling e-waste dumps of China.

Yes - these pictures are real, and these children do die of lead and mercury poisoning as they blow-torch or hack their way through millions of circuit boards.

Still - there are plenty of children where she came from when she reaches a life expectancy of 15 - and plenty of throw-away PCs, laptops, monitors, MP3 players, speakers, headphones, cellphones etc to grow the never ending mountain of e-waste being created to the rapturous sound of iTunes.

I make no secret of my suspicion of recycling programs and the greener than green recycling stores, many of whom actually charge to recycle your e-waste, only to make a clean (or dirty) profit as they shift it along the dirt never ending conveyor belt to China.

Is there an alternative? For an eight year old PC maybe not - none of the internals are up to date, but the real crime is that most of the stuff ending up on e-waste dumps today are between 2 and 3 years old.

The bottom line is that most people today upgrade after about a year or so and leave their old laptop or cellphone lying around in a bottom draw until it’s no longer any good to anyone - before driving down to that (ever so lovely) environmental store with green tea and rose who’ll take it off your hands for $15 - you’ll get back into your Prius, tut at a Hummer and - well I think we’ve been here several million consumers before - Oh what a gravy train - an industry booming at both ends!

If people sold their one or two year old digital cameras, PCs, laptops, cellphones as pre-owned, and if possible, upgraded to another pre-owned but up to date model, then the e-waste merchants would suddenly find their business cut by 75% within a couple of years. The buy, sell or trade pre-owned model as advocated by new trading portal trade 2 save needs to feature strongly in the minds of Americans if the problem of ewaste is to be tackled in the short to medium term.

The downside to this, of course, is that the profits of Sony, Apple, Samsung and Acer among others would suffer from fewer sales. But then, is this such a terrible thing? We love the things they give us, but at some point we have to conclude that it may be too much of a good thing.

Upgrading to stay ahead with technology is becoming more and more important. It’s about time that as Americans we started to do it responsibly - oh and guess what - you’ll say a fist full of dollars too!

At a time when everyone is looking for ways to save money, what could be better than saving money and helping to save the planet at the same time. This is what you can do when you trade in your old model and upgrade it to a model you want which is pre-owned and works and looks perfectly fine.

OK, so you won’t have the self gratifying pleasure of pulling a virginal iPod out of the factory sealed sleave for the very first time, but hey, you’ll have a staggering effect on the global e-waste crisis, if you and a few million other Americans thought the same way.

And after a few days of owning it, you’d have forgotten you bought it pre-owned in the first place!
Upgrading to stay ahead is paramount for tech enthusiasts, many of whom are now upgrading their first generation iPhone after just 6-8 months of use.

You’d be surprised what you can find pre-owned. Many people may use a cellphone for a month, or even less and want to get something else, or perhaps a newer model has just come out. Maybe they were given a free upgrade by their phone company and are quite happy with the one they’ve got.

Virtually anything that has been on the market for a few weeks is available pre-owned in a like new condition.

So why does buy it pre-owned reduce e-waste and your carbon footprint? Buying it pre-owned means that you are reducing the demand for that product by one unit.

And if you go ahead and trade it in or sell it to someone else down the line, you are reducing the demand for a new one to be sold to someone else by another unit again (because he’s buying a pre-owned one off you instead of a new one from Best Buy).

When you trade it in and purchase another pre-owned, again, you are reducing the demand for another product too – and so the cycle continues. Now imagine a few million consumers having the same idea?

Each MP3 player, for example, takes roughly 300 lbs of CO2 to produce. Then there’s the small matter of transportation by road and shipping to the store (from China usually) and ultimately to you. Millions of products – millions of upgrades, millions of tons of e-waste every year, the cycle is endless.

When you buy pre-owned instead of new it means that at the end of the product’s life, there will 3 to 4 times less of that product ending up as e-waste, because as you have reduced the demand, less is being produced as a consequence, especially when you are one of thousands of consumers wanting to save money when they upgrade, and reduce their carbon footprint in the process.

But it’s not just millions of tons of less e-waste every year. China’s demand for oil projected over the next decade has created the speculative price surges we see today. What most people don’t know is that this isn’t totally the blame of Chinese People lining outside the Cadillac showroom in Beijing.

Manufacturing is the biggest single consumer of oil in China, and the biggest (and fastest growing) sector of manufacturing is, yes you guessed it, consumer electronics.

Steve Jobs would love you to upgrade every time he brings out a new iPod or iPhone. Well, providing you trade in your old model (and keep it nice for the next person) and then buy a pre-owned upgrade that someone else may have had for a few weeks or months, then you’ll be doing exactly what he wants and saving money and the planet in the process. Not sure he’d be as happy as I’m suggesting though.

Trading portals like trade 2 save will enable consumers to buy, sell and trade their used electronics, computers, games and movies - with more confidence and for better value so they can upgrade readily while still saving money and reducing ewaste.

The most worrying aspect about the current energy crisis is that there appears to be no short term solutions in terms of demand. Energy Consultant Dominic Whittome of Mainline Energy advocates the increased use of nuclear power as the most effective medium term sollution, however any new stations are unlikely to come online in any significant numbers for another 8-10 years, leaving America in a potential 1930’s style depression and the rest of the World in a food crisis for the short term.

Ironically a 1930’s style depression would significantly reduce demand for energy and bring down oil prices to about $30-40 a barrel, but a depression is hardly the solution we should be seeking.

What I have done here is try to put together 10 realistic measures that Americans can do as individuals, that if done in mass, would greatly reduce world oil prices and increase living standards in the short term whilst we wait for nuclear power stations if the political will allows it and more renewable energies in the long term.

1. Stop using the Shopping Mall. What? are you crazy I hear you say. Well OK, I know it’s quite a social thing for some people, but realistically, driving to and from the shopping Mall equates to about 15% of petroleum needs for this country.
2. Buy Groceries off of the Internet. Think about it - a single Safeway van can deliver the groceries of 100 customers in one journey. Now turn that single van into 100 cars - do the Maths!
3. Buy Everything else off of the Internet and use land based postage. There is a certain amount of retail therapy that my wife, for one, will miss - so what’s a girl to do? To be honest, searching for that little black dress online can be equally as satisfying. Retailers like Victoria Secrets has an incredible online experience, and some retailers are even toying with the idea of online personal shoppers and utilizing the very latest in technology which will allow customers to download a body picture of themselves and place the clothes onto the model in a 3 dimensional landscape. The point is that a USPS or FED EX van (however polluting they are - and many run on natural gas now) - use up a tiny fraction of the millions of cars which go back and forth from the Malls every day! Also, freight trains move a ton of freight up to 423 miles on a single gallon of fuel. Most retailers also offer land based postage for free and guarantee delivery within 3-5 days.
4. Buy pre-owned or refurbished if you can. Our deteriorating buying habits of consumer electronics, gadgets, games, (anything manufactured in China or the Far East) has lead to a significant rise in e-waste as well as increasing energy demands. When you buy, sell or trade used or pre-owned consumer electronics, cellphones, or PC Hardware, you reduce the amount needed to be manufactured.
5. Reduce demand of imported products. Every time you upgrade your cellphone, iPod or computer for a new one, another one has to be made to fill that demand (by you). Making the product requires more energy than you’d think - a typical computer requires the equivalent of 4 gallons of petrol. This doesn’t include the energy needed to ship it to the US or the pollution created by the e-waste at the end of its (every shorter) lifecycle.
6. Increase product lifecycles of consumer products. A decade ago you’d have a camera for 7-10 years before replacing it - we usually replaced it when it broke. Now we don’t think twice about upgrading from the 8MP model to the 10MP model after a year or so. That’s 5 times more cameras being made to satisfy the MUST HAVE revolution in the industry. We can still have the latest iPODS, laptops, camcorders, cellphones etc, but don’t always buy them new.
7. Save money by buying pre-owned. The consumer electronics industry or Steve Jobs will certainly want to stop you from buying pre-owned - the industry as a whole has been making historic revenues as a direct result of shortening product lifecycles. They’ll lose money for sure, but don’t worry about the lowering of the demand having a negative effect on the economy.
8. Spend the money you save on local produce. Imported consumer electronics, computers and gadgets make up about 15-20% of your total outgoings after tax. (Staggering isn’t it - websites like Mint.com can show you in detail just how much money you’re putting away on these things). Buying pre-owned (and sometimes new when you had to) would reduce this figure to 3-5%, whilst still owning exactly the same kit in perfect working order. You’d only notice the difference in the first week. If most Americans did this we’d reduce the amount of tankers heading to the US by about 65%. That’s about 100% of the total energy demand of the global airline industry! The money you save, use on local produce which doesn’t require shipping across the globe. This will reduce demand for imports even further because you’ll be buying more stuff locally that you would have otherwise bought from abroad. In turn this would have a positive effect on our trade deficit too.
9. Only recycle with local recyclers who guaranty local disposal. It’s a sad fact that the Ned Flanders in us skip-a-rooneys along to deposit our recycling in the hapless belief that we’re doing the right thing. Some ‘Green’ recycling firms even charge significant recycling fees for your monitors, computers etc. What you may not realize is that it’s pure black gold to them. They pass it on for a further fee to a recycling exporter who then dumps it on a gas guzzling tanker to be shipped back to China destined to saturate the drinking water of local peasant populations with benzine and bromide.
10. Buy a Prius. OK, this last point is perhaps predictable, and living in San Francisco I am getting quite used to the sight of these things. These cars are much better than what the efficiency figures would suggest. Much of the petrol we use is spent sitting in traffic or behind a red light. A hybrid simply stops using energy when it stops moving. So the real efficiency should be judged by how many ‘real’ miles are traveled on a full tank of petrol. In reality you could easily double the efficiency of a Prius on top of what they are allowed to advertise. If you switch to a Prius expect to reduce your petrol consumption by 60% at the very least! I stick by the Prius because the other hybrids are so far behind in comparison. The Prius is streets ahead of the rest in terms of consumption. VW Golf are releasing a hybrid diesel at the end of 2009 which has better figures, however, with diesel currently at $4.75 in the Bay Area - I think it’s a non-starter.

So there it is - 10 ways that we could reverse the energy crisis NOW. Following these simple steps would have a dramatic and immediate effect. You’ll have more money in your pocket by following these rules, and you’ll be spending much more money on local goods as a result, which will stimulate the American economy instead of further stimulating the Chinese economy and our trade deficit with it.

We’re not talking environmental here, but we should be. Pre-owned games are much more environmental than buying new.

Less are manufactured as a result and fewer are shipped across seas in tankers to get to us.

Of course the developers would argue that the loss of profit means that less development can go into their creation and the public sufferers.

I’d like to hear the car industry arguing that one if they ever tried to ban the purchase of second hand cars.

Now, with the growth of online gaming, it may be possible for the developers to have the best of both worlds - to be more profitable and green - to the detriment of pocket money all over America.

In the meantime continue to enjoy pre-owned games and buy sell and trade pre-owned and used consumer electronics like cellphones, PC hardware, and digital cameras when you can, knowing that you’re being good to our wallet and your planet (nicked that one from upstairs).

What is a pity is that the pre-owned electronics industry is not as mature as the pre-owned games, music or movie industry. With camera and cellphone upgrades now coming out as fast as new games and movies, its time is surely coming.

We’ve all been stung on Craigslist or eBay - an iPod that turns up without the insides, or nothing turns up at all - these so called harmless little frauds that go on thousands of times a day which no one really talks about (it’s a fact that most people would prefer not to admit that they’d been duped in such a way)

But more recently, some particularly nasty things have been happening. Nancy Grace recently highlighted the tragic case of a nanny going missing after answering an ad in Craigslist, and now the couple here who have been caught out thanks to their ignorance of thinking they could get away with a crime and not get traced via their IP address.

Just to recall, Brandon and Amber Herbert placed an ad in Craigslist which said that all the belongings at a house were free for the taking - they then joined in with others to claim goods.

Though this is a comical end to a particularly nasty hoax, the fact remains that the public at large are extremely vulnerable to crime that takes place as a matter of course on auctions sites like eBay, and yes even Craigslist.

The pre-owned industry on the internet would be vastly bigger if there were any effective measures to protect us from con merchants who have now made the art of a con into a multi-million dollar online business.

Perhaps if the portals (who are worth billions) were made responsible for fraud that took place on their sites (like an online retailer would be responsible if they sold you something, took your money and it never showed up).

I think they would be spending much more time trying to solve the issue which has done nothing but escalated exponentially over the last few years.

In an era when the public should be encouraged to be greener and buy pre-owned products, it’s hardly surprising that the market is so tiny compared to the new market.

People have got to feel more confident about online pre-owned purchases if they are to start doing it regularly. The second hand car market would never have taken off in this state.

When we launch trade 2 save will be attempting to increase confidence in the pre-owned electronics market by acting as a retailer as opposed to a third party portal who have no legal obligations to either sellers or buyers. Customers will be able to buy, sell and trade Games, DVDs, consumer electronics and Computer Hardware, confident that they aren’t subject to a scam.

trade 2 save will buy the products, test them and grade them, and then sell them on as pre-owned with a store warranty that customers will be able to trust.

With eBay and Craigslist having done so little over the past decade to tidy up their acts, it could well be that customers start turning to a new breed of pre-owned online retailer who they can trust and save money with.