With an expected rise of mobile bills being sold to reach 2009 by the year 2009, the need to find the best use for the unused and discarded mobiles piling up each year has become an important concern.  Mobile phone recycling has become the call of the day for more than one reason.  Not only does recycling mobile phones reduce the potential negative effects on the environment as a result of the contamination caused by the composing substances but it also helps to generate money and recover valuable parts for future use from the mobiles.  Why recycle?

• Mobile phones contain numerous substances which need to be disposed of in safe and efficient manner such as

Cadmium - The Cadmium in the battery from a single old phone could seriously contaminate 600,000 litres of water, which is why it is being phased out of new batteries.

Lead - used to solder components to the printed wiring boards; lead affects the immune, endocrine and central nervous systems, and causes serious damage to children’s brains

Brominated flame retardants - used in wiring boards and plastic cases; these have been associated with cancer, liver damage and problems with the neurological, immune and endocrine systems.

Beryllium – is used in contacts and springs; causes serious lung damage, and emits highly toxic dioxins when the phones are incinerated in waste plants.

• Helps to extract and reuse valuable materials and parts of the phone

Recovery of precious and semiprecious metals - by extracting metals from ground up mobile parts and batteries
Recovery of plastic – using energy-from-incineration plastic is recovered from components while outer body plastic may be granulated and reformulated for use in mouldings

Recovery and downgrading of valuable components- flash memory devices.

Reuse parts- such as aerials, battery connectors, PCBs (printed circuit boards), connectors including gold-coated edge contacts on PCBs, ICs (integrated circuits), keyboards, LCD screens, lenses, microphones, phone housings, screws, SIM card assemblies and speakers.

  There are several companies within the UK, which contribute towards these noble causes by helping to recycle mobile phones that have been discarded.  Envirofone.com is the UK’s number 1 online mobile phone recycling site that is free to use, and which pays you cash for your old mobile and helps the environment and charities through the process.  In the last year they have paid out over £1.5 million to users, £300,000 in donations made to charities and thousands of pounds more are paid out every week. They accept both Working and non-working phones. According to a report, there are over 80 million old mobile phones lying around in the UK alone having a value of £1.6 Billion. Want to know what you could buy with that kind of money.

·        3.5 billion chocolate bars

·        3 new NHS hospital developments

·        1 Royal Navy Aircraft carrier

·        4.8 million pairs of shoes

·        800 million pints of beer

Recycle old mobile phones today and make a difference in yours and others lives.