Friday, November 10, 2006

What to do with old mobile phones


I need to change my phone, but what to do with the old one? I now have three sitting in a kitchen drawer creating a time-line of bad design. Here's what a bit of research has thrown up:
    Mobi Facts
  • In the UK, the average consumer replaces his/her mobile phone every 18 months and it is estimated that over 15 million mobile phones are replaced each year in the UK.
  • There are an estimated 45 million mobile phones in circulation at present in the UK, 817 million globally.
  • Approximately 77% of the population have at least one mobile phone, yet only 15% are recycled in the UK.
  • That's a lot of phones going to landfill where they become an environmental hazard by leaching dangerous toxins.

Time to embrace the feel-good factor and ease the burden on your local landfill. Give them instead to a charity to be recycled for use in developing nations or traded for food and survival for the future.
    Solutions
  • Some mobile phone suppliers will take your old one in part-exchange. If they don't, time to change your supplier.
  • Hand it in to your local oxfam shop or send it in a jiffy bag,
    FREEPOST to:
    Oxfam Bring Bring Scheme
    Freepost LON16281
    London WC1N 3BR
    oxfam
  • FREEPOST to:
    World Vision Phones for Food
    ShP Solutions
    Freepost NEA14439
    Lancaster LA1 1ZZ
    World Vision Phones for Food
  • Give it to your granny.

1 comment:

Spirit of 1976 said...

I seem to recall last time I changed phones I had to send the old one back to the company. Not that it mattered, since it had packed up (or "taken a dump" as the repairman put it, clearly a technical term) while at the Reading Festival.

I think I'm due for an upgrade soon to a new phone with lots of cool hi-tech features that I'll never use. I'll see if I can donate my old phone somewhere that time.