Donate your old hearing aids to charity

I was tidying out some drawers the other day and I found my old hearing aids. I have some Siemens ITCs and two pairs of Starkey ITEs – I’m sure I also have at least one pair of BTEs somewhere but they didn’t turn up. My first thought was to throw them into the bin with the rest of the stuff from the drawer but I remembered reading something somewhere about charities that recycle old hearing aids and give them to people who aren’t able to own a new pair.

Even though some of these aids are very old they are still in good working order so I might as well let someone else benefit from them. A quick Google showed that the Starkey Hearing Foundation are running a recycling scheme. Starkey’s Hear Now webpage has an address for postal hearing aid donations. This same page also has an application form should you wish to receive a donated aid. They are also looking for hearing professionals who could volunteer their time and expertise to help with the fitting and follow up of Hear Now clients.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any schemes like Starkey’s Hear Now that are running in the UK. This is a shame. If you know of any such UK scheme then please add a comment and I’ll link to them. Thanks.

UPDATE 11/09/09

I wrote the above some time ago. Since then I have started a site called Hearing Aid Market that allows people to sell give and buy hearing aids online. If you have a hearing aid to donate then you should definitely check it out.