You can always use it as goodwill for your business. Take a selfie with the cops and make a facebook post like “Another stolen phone recovered thanks to the local pd!” People eat that shit up and it gives you some legitimacy and clout, maybe even a piece in the newspaper about how you just like helping the community.
It’s not a lot, but it’s another revenue stream to consider.
https://www.scrapmonster.com/scrap-yard/price/electronics-scrap/4
You can also tell people you’ll recycle it for them and actually just fix it yourself if they’re not going fix it anyway.
I sell a lot of vintage electronics like vcr’s, tape decks even a laser disc player for $300 one time. I have a whole package of random belts for the tape decks, which are easy to replace. I also do a lot of car parts as well as other random items. If you have a source for those hotel lock parts that are getting thrown away anyway then look uo how much they sell for. (Search ebay and filter by sold)
Just start fixing devices yourself. Make a professional looking ad and do it at home. Advertise on your local facebook groups. Just be upfront about not having a shop yet. Buy broken devices and fix/resell them. Offer electronics recycling and get stuff for free that you can resell/scrap for money. If you need help with ebay I can write up a guide. I’ve been selling for 20 years.
In order to use someone elses content under fair use you have to make “meaningful commentary” so they do the bare minimum in order to use other people’s videos.