About Us
Founded with a simple mission to make recycling easier and more rewarding, WeCycle USA began as a premier at-home pickup service for bottles and cans, helping communities turn everyday recyclables into real value. As the recycling landscape evolved, so did we. Recognizing the critical role rare earth elements play in clean energy, advanced technology, and national sustainability efforts, WeCycle USA made a strategic shift to focus on the collection of high-impact electronic and household items that contain these essential materials. Today, we bring that same convenient at-home pickup model to rare earth recycling—connecting households directly to the circular economy and helping recover the materials that power tomorrow’s technologies.
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We are proudly serving West Islip and the immediately surrounding communities at this time. As our workforce grows we will be able to offer this service to a larger area.
What Are Rare Earth Elements
Rare earth elements are a group of 17 metallic elements that are critical to modern technology, consisting of lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium. Despite their name, these elements are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust but are rarely found in concentrated, easily extractable forms, making their production complex and resource-intensive. They are typically produced through mining and multi-step refining processes that separate very small quantities of usable material from large volumes of ore—an environmentally challenging process that is currently dominated by overseas supply chains. Rare earth elements are essential components in powerful permanent magnets, high-efficiency motors, batteries, lighting phosphors, and precision electronics, and are widely used in products such as smartphones, computers, electric vehicles, wind turbines, headphones, speakers, LED lighting, medical equipment, and defense technologies. As demand continues to grow, recycling rare earth elements from existing products is increasingly important to improve sustainability, reduce environmental impact, and strengthen domestic supply security.
What Items We Collect
WeCycle USA specializes in the at-home pickup of electronic and mechanical items that contain valuable rare earth elements (REEs)—critical materials used in clean energy, advanced electronics, and modern manufacturing. Our focus is on items with permanent magnets, specialized batteries, and phosphor materials that can be responsibly recovered and reintroduced into the supply chain.
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We currently collect items from the following categories:
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Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) — Seagate, Western Digital, and others
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Laptop Hard Drives (2.5” HDDs) — Seagate, Western Digital, and others
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Enterprise & Server Hard Drives — Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, and others
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Electric Vehicle (EV) Traction Motors — Tesla, Volkswagen, and others
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Hybrid Vehicle Motors — Toyota, Honda, and others
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Industrial Permanent-Magnet Motors — Siemens, ABB, and others
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HVAC & Commercial Equipment Motors — Carrier, Trane, and others
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Electric Scooter & E-Bike Motors — Segway-Ninebot, Bosch, and others
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Cordless Power Tool Motors — DeWalt, Makita, Milwaukee, and others
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Consumer Electronics Speakers — Bose, Sony, JBL, and others
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Headphones & Earbuds — Apple, Samsung, Sony, and others
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NiMH Hybrid Vehicle Battery Packs — Toyota, Lexus, and others
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NiMH Rechargeable Consumer Batteries — Panasonic, Energizer, and others
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Fluorescent & CFL Lighting Tubes — Philips, GE Lighting, and others
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LED Lighting Components — Cree, Osram, and others
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Wind Turbine Generator Components — Siemens Gamesa, GE Renewable Energy, and others
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Computer Cooling Fans & Brushless Motors — Dell, HP, and others
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Power Supplies & Electronic Actuators — Delta Electronics, Lite-On, and others
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Audio Equipment & Studio Monitors — Yamaha, Harman, and others
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Mixed Electronic Scrap with Permanent Magnets — Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others
If you’re unsure whether an item qualifies, our team is happy to help.
Why These Items Matter
Many everyday electronics and machines contain rare earth elements such as neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, europium, and yttrium. These materials are essential for:
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Electric vehicles and renewable energy
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Smartphones, computers, and data centers
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Medical devices and defense technologies
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High-efficiency motors and generators
Mining rare earth elements is expensive, environmentally disruptive, and largely dependent on foreign supply chains. By recovering these materials from existing products, WeCycle USA helps:
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Reduce environmental impact
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Strengthen domestic supply chains
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Keep valuable materials out of landfills
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Support the transition to clean energy and advanced manufacturing
Every item collected contributes to a more sustainable, circular economy.
How Does It Work?
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1. SIGN UP with WeCycle. It's quick and easy!
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2. Verify the items you would like to recycle are on the list of acceptable items found HERE, and then schedule an at-home pick up.
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3. Leave the items to be picked up in front of your house by 8:00AM on your scheduled pick up day.
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4. WeCycle will make the pick up and give you a payout based on the market price of the items via Venmo, Chase QuickPay with Zelle, or PayPal.
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