Sonos introduced its Trade-Up program to recycle audio equipment earlier this year, but some customers are unhappy with what's actually done with old speakers and related products.

It appears that, rather than reselling units still in good condition, Sonos tosses them right in the trash. Twitter user @atomicthumbs shared his discovery after realizing the Santa Barbara-based company intentionally bricks devices before they're shipped out and recycled. Customers enter the serial numbers of devices to trade in, and then Sonos issues a software-side tweak that renders them useless ahead of their shipment to its recycling partners.

Several Play:5 speakers, for example, were submitted to Sonos. Each can resell for $250 in good condition, but Sonos will dispose of them according to the source who holds a job at an e-recycling facility.

"This is the most environmentally unfriendly abuse and waste of perfectly good hardware I've seen in five years working at a recycler," the Twitter user said in a series of tweets. "We could have sold these, and ensured they were reused, as we do with all the working electronics we're able. Now we have to scrap them."

Environmentalists suggest reusing products if possible. Sonos could certainly do that, but instead it rolls out an irreversible software update taking devices offline.

Recycle mode takes action after 21 days. It cannot be exited, and that means customers are forced to purchase new hardware even if they ultimately decide against shipping their audio equipment to Sonos. Some customers have accidentally put their devices into recycle mode, and Sonos refuses to do anything to reverse it.

Support representatives at Sonos are unfamiliar with the situation, only telling customers details surrounding the Trade-Up program in generic replies.

Bricking devices doesn't seem fair. If anything, Sonos should merely require customers to factory reset their devices prior to shipping them to recycling partners. Sonos should respond and provide more clarity in the coming days, and hopefully it modifies the policy to be more kind toward customers.