More encouragement needed for phone recycling
The Vice President of Recellular, Mike Newman, speaking for the company that repairs mobile phones, believes that steps should be taken to encourage more people to recycle mobile handsets. Over 120 million cell phones are thrown away every year in the United States, so the worldwide figure is a staggering one that has consequences for the environment.
With one billion handsets produced every year the problem of disposing of old cellular phones needs to be tackled. Nokia have stated that only 2 % of users are availing of the various collection programs, so the whole sector needs to think up new ways to get people to think more about the real problem from discarded cell phones.
A study carried out by the American Environmental Protection Agency recently showed that over 4 billion people on the planet have cell phone subscriptions, proving just how far it has changed people’s lives.
Recycling saves energy but also the handsets contain arsenic, cadmium and other lethal chemicals which leak out and affect the environment. Manufacturing a cellular phone involves the use of precious metals and these can be reused after dismantling.
