We all spend time making sure to shred our important paper documents, but what do you do with your ewaste and old electronics? How much thought do you put into your old cell phones from 5, 10, even 15 years ago sitting in that junk drawer? It turns out that old electronics are vulnerable to being hacked. Even if you've cleared off the data. Old passwords, your social security number and other personal information are vulnerable to being stolen from an old device. It is important to properly dispose of your ewaste, if you don't you could have a massive headache on your horizon.

Here are 3 ways you can get rid of your ewaste:

1. Find a hard drive and phone shredding service: The easiest way to ensure that your hard drive is completely wiped of your personal information is to destroy the hard drive. Destroying the hard drive ensures that no data can be retrieved from your device. There are a ton of services available where you can bring them your ewaste and they will crush and recycle the old metal and plastic.

2. Take your products to buy back service: A lot of times electronics companies have buyback programs where they will buy their products back, replace the hard drive, and sometimes even give you money for your old device. Best Buy has a great program where you can bring in your old products.

3. Donate your products to a charity: There are a ton of charities that will take back your old devices, refurbish them and sell them. They even provide jobs for people to help do the refurbishing. There are a ton of local charities that do this kind of work. Recycling for Charities is the one i've heard of. You can do a search to see if it's in your area.

The main takeaway is to make sure you're aware of your old devices and to make sure you're taking care of the information on your phone. You can also google ways to wipe the hard drive, but as I mentioned above, the safest bet is to take is to make sure it is destroyed or completely wiped of the information.