Mobile phone recycling - money for you and help the environment

Mobile recycling schemes will allow you to claim hard cash for your old handset and do your bit for charity and the environment with minimum effort.

In a typical house, two redundant handsets are collecting dust. Most mobile phone users upgrade their handsets every 18 months or so, replacing perfectly serviceable equipment with smarter models featuring cameras, MP3 players and other non-essentials. The ultimate destination of most discarded phones — after a stint in a cupboard — is the local landfill site.

Leaving an old mobile unused — or, worse, binning it — is a waste of money, technology and natural resources. A number of organisations will pay you, or a charity, more than you might expect for your mobile before recycling its parts or reconditioning it for sale in the developing world, where landline infrastructure is poor.

Friends of the Earth urges people to take advantage of these recycling services. The charity’s waste campaigner, Michael Warhurst, says that mobile phone batteries should be used to their full lifespan to minimise waste of the rare, and often toxic, metals mined to make them.
Visitors to the mobile recycling website www.envirofone.com can select the brand and model of their unwanted handset to find the price that the company will pay. If they are happy with the offer, they can order a free prepaid padded envelope online. Provided that the phone arrives in working order, with only superficial cosmetic damage — a few scratches are fine — customers receive a cheque, or Argos credit, for the quote amount plus 15 per cent, within 20 days of receipt. You do not need to send in the charger, but you should remove the SIM card.
Peter Petrondas, chief executive of Envirofone, says that his company pays an average of £24 a phone, plus £1 to each customer’s chosen charity. Most handsets are reconditioned and sold in Africa, China and Eastern Europe.

British Gas has a similar service at www.tradeinmymobile.co.uk. If you are a British Gas customer, it is worth comparing offers at the two sites. A quick browse shows that British Gas tends not to offer cash for budget handsets — instead offering to pay £2 to Save the Children.
You may prefer to donate your old handset direct to a charity that offers its own recycling programme. Help the Aged (www.helptheaged.org.uk), Against Breast Cancer (www.aabc.org.uk) and Oxfam (www.oxfam.org.uk) are among the contenders. Help the Aged receives at least £5 for every mobile donated. Office Green Technologies (www.officegreen.co.uk) recycles mobiles and pledges to pay the full value of your phone to the charity of your choice.