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Most People Don't Recycle Old Cell Phones

by Will Safer on July 11, 2008 at 09:02 AM



All those old cell phones sitting around forgotten and unused in desk drawers could add up to a whole lot of valuable raw materials. Turns out that most of us don't take the time to gather up those our used mobile units and send them on to be recycled, according to a new survey by Nokia.

Nokia polled 6,500 people in 13 countries nationwide, and found that only 3 percent of people actually recycle their old cell phones.

We already know most discarded cell phones just pile up in landfills, but the news from Nokia suggests that there would be a huge environmental benefit if cell phones were properly recycled. "If each of the three billion people globally owning mobiles brought back just one unused device," said Nokia's Director of Environmental Affairs, Markus Terho, "we could save 240,000 tons of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gases to the same effect as taking 4 million cars off the road."

According to the Nokia survey, most people simply don't know how they can easily recycle their old devices. The company aims to make the process easier, for example, with drop boxes placed in easily accessible locations.

The survey also revealed that although 72 percent of people think recycling is important, 74 percent didn't know their old mobile phones could be recycled. In fact, up to 80 percent of any Nokia device is recyclable and precious materials within it can be reused to help make new products such as "kitchen kettles, park benches, dental fillings or even saxophones and other metal musical instruments." [Source: Textually.org.]

Tags: cell phones, CellPhones, Nokia, recycling

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