Hi Rebecca!
Welcome to the Disney Parks Moms Panel! We too have an impressive collection of old
MagicBands. For future visits, there is the ability to decline new bands, so you don’t continue to accumulate more if you don’t need them. The battery should last for about two years. Your MagicBands are linked to you, not to a specific visit, so they can be used for upcoming vacations! To my knowledge, most municipalities don’t offer any kind of special recycling for items such as MagicBands. If you aren't interested in repurposing them, you will probably have to throw them into your regular waste.
In my family, we prefer to repurpose our MagicBands! I have seen some people make a cute wreath with theirs, by buying a pre-made wreath ring and wrapping the MagicBands around the form. At our home, since we are huge Disney fanatics, we have two Christmas trees. The tree in our family room is completely Disney themed, and we have linked our MagicBands together and created a garland for our tree! My mom has a similar tree and so we have made good use of our many MagicBands. If a Disney tree isn’t your thing, maybe you know a fellow Disney loving family that might enjoy the idea?
I hope one of these ideas sounds like fun, or I may suggest searching Pinterest for other cute ways to reuse them that you may like. I only wish I could use them at home to just tap and go on everything like I do on vacation!
- Kate