What To Do With Broken Headphones? Recycle Or Throw Away?

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I am pretty sure you have had a pair of broken headphones in your hands and didn’t know what to do with them! I have often found myself in that situation, through which I had no idea what I could do.

What to do with broken headphones? Should you recycle them? What if you throw them away? This article aims to help you during these situations, as I will tell you what to do! Let’s get started!

Key Takeaways

  • Always remember that you shouldn’t throw headphones away, as there are some things you can do instead.
  • Recycling is one of the key things you can do to save your headphones.
  • If you want to get some money, you can always trade in your broken headphones, especially if the brands allow trading in.
  • DIY projects are never out of the table, and you can also create some new things with your broken headphones.
  • Surprisingly enough, you can turn headphones into speakers and microphones as well.

What To Do With Broken Headphones?

As the title of this article implies, there are two main specific things you can do with your broken headphones: recycle them and throw them away.

However, I wouldn’t advise you to throw away the headphones in any manner! Besides recycling, there is another thing that is considered life-saving for headphones in general: the trade-in manner.

In this part of this article, I will mention the two things you can do to help you and your headphones. As said, they include recycling and trading-in.

Recycling is a Life Saver

The recycling of the headphones always depends on the part of them that is damaged. As you know, headphones have many functions and pieces, both in and out. On the inner side, you have the drivers and the magnets; meanwhile, on the outer part, you will find the cables (wired headphones), the earcups, the headbands, and so on. Let me tell you some of the parts of different headphones that you can recycle easily. Those include speakers, which are made of recyclable materials such as magnets, cones, and copper coils; the cords, made of aluminum copper; the jack in wired headphones, which includes copper again; the earbuds, mostly made of latex and foam.

Based on everything I mentioned above, you can conclude that you can recycle most pieces of headphones just by keeping in mind the materials they are made of.

Something worth mentioning about the recycling part is that many brands offer recycling programs for their headphones. For example, you will find the JLab brand, which has a whole program about recycling, and it is indeed one of the favorite ones for many people, of course, the ones that use JLab headphones.

Earn Some Money

I don’t think there is someone worldwide that wouldn’t want to trade headphones for some cash, right? Well, trading in is another thing or manner that you can do to not throw away the broken headphones that you have. Trading-in means giving the headphones back to the brand that you have bought them, and they provide you with money or gift cards.

Like in the recycling part, some brands include trade-in programs, offering impressive help to their clients. Those brands include Apple, Sony, and JLab (yes, again).

What you should do to trade in your broken headphones is to take them and bring them to any brand store, and then they offer you money and some types of gift cards. You should know that they don’t give you the amount of cash you gave when you purchased the headphones.

Things to Know: Other Things to Do With Broken Headphones

The two things I mentioned above are the key factors that a person should do and the steps to follow if you have in mind the unwritten rule of not throwing away headphones.

However, there are some other things that you can do with your broken headphones. I know that this section may sound like a DIY part, but it is interesting enough in what you can turn the headphones to be.

Accessories

If the broken headphones you have in hand are wired headphones, I would recommend an interesting thing you can do: turn the cables into accessories of any kind.

With the cables, you can make bracelets, and there’s no doubt. They will look cool in your hands, especially if you put something in there, such as any symbol or sign representing anything.

Microphones

Interestingly enough, you can turn headphones into microphones as well. Especially the small, lavalier microphones that you see used by many reporters and journalists. The main thing you need is to have a working microphone from the wires of the just broken headphones, and once you put the pieces together with the help of electrical tape, you are ready to go.

Speakers

Headphones are small speakers that bring the sound directly to your ears. However, keeping in mind that the headphones are broken, you should have at least one working driver out of them.

You should start by removing the speaker that works and connecting them, with a wire, to a circuit board. By the way, a circuit board is a piece that connects different electronic components.

Final Words

Well, here we are! We’ve come to the end of today’s article, in which I mentioned some things, in fact, some manners in that you can save your headphones. Always remember that throwing headphones away isn’t the best thing; instead, you can recycle them, trade them in, and make some DIY stuff.

Also, you should ensure that the headphones you use are recyclable or you can turn them in, as not every brand will offer you these programs. If you see that you can’t really do anything with your broken headphones, then you can use creativity and do some DIY projects.

Yet again, I hope that this article will help you deal with your broken headphones in the best way possible! Have fun!

Final Words

See, you don’t have to throw everything that gets broken. You always have the possibility to make something else out of it, or just fix it. I hope you find this article hopeful, and if you happen to be a creative human being, then I strongly advise you to try the DIY tips, I’m pretty sure those tips will turn out to be quite cool, and you can thank me later if they do.

There is always a good side to everything that’s bad, and this article is the “living” proof of that. The bad thing is your broken headphones, the good thing, is the fact that you came across this article. 

Further Reading

Now that we came to this part, in which I love to give some advice, let me mention to you guys some articles that I have already written, related to headphones. The first thing that you may want to know is the reason why headphones can get broken, as it is the one that brings you to this article.

You can also find out why your headphones pause your songs, or an important thing that you should know is whether headphones can electrocute you! Some other things that you may want to know are the ways on wearing headphones with glasses, or the prevention of headphone hair.

Whether you’re looking for information on audio equipment, looking to learn more about how things work in the music field, or looking for reviews of products, we got you covered!

 
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