My understanding has always been that e-recycling centers have to pay to responsibly dispose of the junk they collect / are given, and they fund this by sorting through it for any equipment that can be refurbished or cannibalised and sold for re-use. There's nothing nefarious about this.

Me too. I’m dropping stuff off at a recycling centre because I have no use for it anymore. If they can find a use for it, that makes me happy. It’s the same reason I’d rather donate stuff to charity or drop it off at a thrift store for them to sell than throw it in the trash.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this (in fact quite a bit is right with it) as long as they have ensured that any of the original owner's data has been wiped. Re-using is far more environmentally friendly than recycling since rather than a fraction, 100% of the device is effectively being recycled.

Recycling centers aren't nonprofits. The only way recycling can work in our economy is if the recycling party can sell the output of their work for more than they spend on that work.

> Recycling centers aren't nonprofits.

Many of them are.

https://www.electronicrecyclingassociation.ca/about-us/