A survey released by Finland based mobile phone maker Nokia has that one of the main reasons why so few people recycle their mobile phones. Most people simply don’t know that it is possible to recycle mobile phones. Even if they were aware that a mobile could be recycled, did not know how to go about doing this.
- Two thirds said they did not know how to recycle an unwanted mobile device
- A majority (71%) were unaware of where to recycle an unwanted mobile device.
- Globally, half of those surveyed didn’t know phones could be recycled, with awareness lowest in India at 17% and Indonesia at 29%, and highest in the UK at 80% and 66% in Finland and Sweden.
Nokia also found some other interesting factoids about our mobile phones recycling habits.
- On average consumers have owned around five phones.
- Only 3% of people recycle their mobile phones.
- Three out of every four people indicated that they don’t even think about recycling their devices
- Nearly half of the respondents were unaware that it is even possible to recycle their mobile phones.
- The majority of retired phones, 44%, are kept at homes never used again.
- One quarter of users are passing on their old phones to friends or family
- Sixteen percent of people are selling their used devices particularly in emerging markets.
- Remarkably only 4%, of retired mobile devices are being thrown into landfill.
Markus Terho, Director of Environmental Affairs, Markets, at Nokia said, “If each of the three billion people globally owning mobiles brought back just one unused device 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.”
Up to 80% of any Nokia device is recyclable and precious materials within it can be reused to help make new products. Mr. Terho said, “Using the best recycling technology nothing is wasted. Between 65 – 80 per cent of a Nokia device can be recycled. Plastics that can’t be recycled are burnt to provide energy for the recycling process, and other materials are ground up into chips and used as construction materials or for building roads. In this way nothing has to go to landfill.”
Nokia has collection points for unwanted mobile devices in 85 countries around the world, the largest voluntary scheme in the mobile industry. People can drop off their old devices at Nokia stores and almost 5,000 Nokia Care Centers. To find their nearest take back point people can visit ecoATM.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him at LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.