Most of the time a trip to the ATM means draining money from your bank account, but if it’s a visit to the newly debuted EcoATM that you’re planning, you could actually end up with more money to your name. The EcoATM doesn’t withdraw cash but instead accepts used cellphones (we’ve all got one in a drawer somewhere), assesses their secondary market value, and offers up gift cards, trade-ups or charitable donations for the device.

The idea isn’t so different from the take back programs that are now being offered at some major electronics retail stores like Best Buy, but EcoATM hopes that the convenience of being able to visit a machine, get a quick estimate on value, and receive tangible rewards for the effort will convince more consumers to recycle their cellphones. And if they’re successful, the positive environmental effect could be huge; more than 100 million cellphones are thrown away in the United States every year and they leach toxic chemicals into landfills. Worse yet, the components that need to mined to make cellphones are wasted, instead of being reused by manufacturers who can avoid further mining—a problem EcoATM could be instrumental in solving.

If your cellphone is deemed worthless—listen up everyone with a Saved By the Bell-era brick phone—you’ll have the option to recycle it in the machine and EcoATM will plant a tree every time that happens (they’ll also give you a free waterproof phone case, but a cheap plastic product seems counterintuitive to their goal in our opinion).

Currently only available in the Omaha, Nebraska at Nebraska Furniture Mart, the EcoATM company is planning to have EcoATM machines in retail stores in California, Texas, Washington and Vermont by the end of the quarter. They’re also planning on expanding the electronics devices accepted by the EcoATMs to include MP3 players, video game systems and software, laptops and printers, digital cameras, LCD monitors, GPS units and more. So keep an eye out for one of these big green machines in your favorite electronics store (and start searching your drawers for dusty devices).

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