Recycle Mobile Phones

Posted on April 4, 2008

At the CTIA Wireless 2008 show this week in Las Vegas, amongst new gadgets and 4G hype, some companies such as ReCellular are offering recycling services for mobile phones. With worldwide mobile phone sales at above 1 billion units a year, devices are being produced in very high volumes. And how long have you had your cell phone for? Most users get a new phone every 12 to 18 months. Either they broke the previous one or felt the urge to buy the latest gadget like an iPhone. So imagine the volume of “old” phones were are producing. In the US market alone (over 150 million new phones sold each year), the EPA estimates that less than 20% are recycled.

Interestingly, most of these old phones are stored in homes, but an increasing number is starting to hit the landfills. Although mobile phones are increasingly produced with more friendly components to the environment, like all electronic equipment, they contain quite polluting and corrosive elements. Depending on the vintage of your old phone (and its charger), it either can be refurbished and resold, or its raw materials can be harvested and resold for re-use.

These companies have come up with innovative recycling proposal to entice individuals and companies to send there old phones to them. Some of these include donation programs for the charity of your choice. The San Diego Zoo and other American zoos have set up a program with Eco-Cell to support african gorillas.

Whatever the cause you choose to support, your old phone still has value and can be re-used. The EPA has started a program in 2008 to encourage cell phone recycling and estimates that recycling just a million cell phones reduces greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking 1,368 cars off the road for a year. The EPA also lists recommended places to deposit your old phone. Read about it here.

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Comments

One Response to “Recycle Mobile Phones”

  1. The Blue Dot on July 29th, 2009 2:26 am

    Our company The Blue Dot is an online retailer specializes in selling preowned and refurbished cell phones.

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