Why It Makes Sense to Recycle Mobile Phones

Jan 11 2010 By Damien Porter

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Of the 77 million mobile phone connections in the UK, a significant proportion are on contracts which allow users to change their handset after a year or 18 months.

Unless people sell on or recycle mobile phones when they upgrade, the old handsets can have a significant impact on the environment.

Handsets which end up in landfill can take hundreds of years to break down, and some phones have toxic elements causing pollution of the land and underground water systems.

Even if yours is not in landfill, but is simply one of the estimated 90 million redundant mobiles in the UK, it is still a waste of a valuable resource.

It’s possible to re-use phones, perhaps by selling them on to someone you know, or through an auction site or classified directories. While the handset needs to be operational if you want to sell it, there is also up to £200 to be made from recycling mobile phones - whether or not the handset still works.

Even after a couple of years, and even if it is not in perfect working order, your used mobile still has value. So if you think you should throw away rather than recycle mobile phones because they are not worth anything, think again.

All phones contain some precious metals such as gold and silver, and minerals like cobalt, and all of these elements can be recovered when recycling mobiles. Recycling can also help reduce the amount of mining which takes place for these things, which takes its own toll on the environment.

Valuable components can be broken down and re-used in new phones. Those parts which cannot be re-used are disposed of properly, in a way which as gentle on the environment as possible, and in line with European waste regulations.

The metals and plastic from your old phone can also be re-used in other ways – for example the gold and silver could be used to make jewellery, or the plastic could become part of a traffic cone or bucket. Even the paper from the manual for your old mobile, and the cardboard box it came in, can be recycled.

Recycling your old phone saves you having to look for a buyer, or set up an auction arrangement, and is a quick and hassle-free way of being kind to your pocket as well as the planet.

Check out the range of websites which invite people to recycle mobile phones. You just have to tell the company your model number and make to get a quote for how much they will pay you for it.

Then put your old handset in the post and then sit back and wait for the payment, either by bank transfer or cheque. This shouldn’t take more than a week. Often, you won’t even have to pay for postage to recycle your phone.

Many phone companies and manufacturers have their own arrangements in place to recycle mobile phones. Other schemes accept mobiles and give donations to a charity of your choice in return, or are set up to support schools.

Equally, if you recycle your mobile, you can help developing countries, where refurbished mobiles are a cost-effective alternative to new ones.

So there’s really no reason to put your unwanted handset in the bin, or let it languish unused in a drawer, but every reason to remember to recycle mobile phones.