Why Recycle Mobile Phones?

You may have noticed that a lot of your friends are selling old mobile phones for cash by using a mobile phone recycling site. There are many around to use that you can do this with. Each of which have their own incentives for using them. The main incentive normally being the cash they pay for your used mobile.

But if not for the money you’re given for your mobile phone then you should recycle your mobile for the Environmental benefits that it brings. We have covered in recent past posts here how mobile phones can have a damaging effect on the Environment for plants, wildlife and people if they are not recycled properly using a mobile phone recycling initiative of some sort.

In one of our posts “The Future of Mobile Phone Recycling“. We go on to explain how mobile phone recycling started to how it is now actually illegal to dispose of old electrical items like mobile phones through your normal household waste and that you must recycle them in an environmentally friendly way by using one of the “Top Mobile Phone Recycling Sites“.

But Why Recycle Your Mobile Phone?

Why recycle and or sell your mobile phone for cash? As above, the most obvious reason and one which should be your main reason is because of the small helping hand it has on lessening landfill waste and reducing the CO2 footprint that mobile phones leave behind. They say of the 90 million mobiles in the UK, only around 10% of them are actually recycled every year. Of that many mobiles only around 3 million were recycled during 2009. That number is seriously too low considering how many mobile phones are in circulation, the awareness that’s been created and knowing how damaging they are to the planet.

Some Mobile Phone Recycling Statistics

Mobile phones contain precious, expensive metals like Gold, Silver, Platinum, Copper, Lead, Mercury and more. These metals can be extracted from the handset during the recycling process. Along with other trace metals, plastics and glasses  that can be extracted and recycled. If they are not, the mobile phone providers will be forced to find other ways of getting these materials. Whether it be through mining forests to buying in raw materials. To keep up with the very high demand for the latest technological gadget.

They say that just one battery would be enough to contaminate over 600,000 litres of water. Enough to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. On average every UK home has at least 3 mobile phones. It’s estimated there to be around 80-90 million unused mobile phones in the UK alone. (130 million  in the US) Just lying around gathering dust, never to be used again.

The precious metals such as Gold, Silver, Copper, Platinum, Titanium and other fine metals that can be used again in brand new mobiles. If you extracted all the gold from 80 million mobile phones and got 0.2 gms out of each. You’d end up with 16000000 gms. (About 16 tonnes)

So if you correctly recycle a mobile it can help by decreasing the harmful materials like as Coltan, Lead, Copper, Gold etc etc from being mined for in in third world countries like the Congo, Amazon rain forest or Africa where it is destroying the natural habitats for the precious animals and wild life that live there.

View more information on: How To Sell Your Mobile Phone for Cash and The Best Way To Sell Your Mobile Phone which is an overview of our main posts here.

• 90 million UK residents own a mobile phone they can recycle.
• If not for the Cash paid benefits then recycle for the Environment.
• Always delete personal information from your mobile first.
• You can recycle broken mobiles as well as good working ones.
• Use recorded special delivery when sending in expensive models.
• Review and compare recyclers before you use one to sell your mobile.

Click here to Review and Compare the top mobile phone recyclers.