Recycle Your Old Mobile
Ever thought of recycling your old mobile?
Cadmium from one mobile phone battery is enough to pollute 600,000 litres of water – which would fill one third of an Olympic sized swimming pool!
But your mobile phone can be recycled – and easily. You can return it directly to over 1200 retail outlets throughout the UK (O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone) or collect a Freepost envelope in-store and send your unwanted handset and accessories to the Fonebak recycling centre (Virgin Mobile, Virgin Megastores, Currys, Dixons, The Link, PC World).
More information from Fonebak.
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Walthamstow, GB , 19 Aug 2005
discovered i still had last year’s mobile phone in its box (yes, i’m one of those people that keep the box – just in case….). anyhoo, as part of my action in attending the g8 rally in edinburgh, i paid off my carbon emission at www.futureforests.com and in their pack of stuff was a ‘recycle your phone’ envelope. so, 2 actions in 1! very glad to be rid of the old mobe and its box.
Walthamstow, GB , 19 Aug 2005
discovered i still had last year’s mobile phone in its box (yes, i’m one of those people that keep the box – just in case….). anyhoo, as part of my action in attending the g8 rally in edinburgh, i paid off my carbon emission at www.futureforests.com and in their pack of stuff was a ‘recycle your phone’ envelope. so, 2 actions in 1! very glad to be rid of the old mobe and its box.
11 Sep 2005
We picked a Fonebak envelope in Body Shop yesterday. Apparently we can just post it.
Godalming, GB , 12 Sep 2005
I took mine to the Body Shop after it had died on me last year. It seems they can be made use of even if they have stopped working, but I think some charities only want working phones.
30 Sep 2005
I have actually sent 3 of my old mobile phones off to MoPay (http://www.mopay.co.uk) who not only recycle the phones but also donate an extra 10% to Childline and give you cash for the phone.
So far I have located and submitted
1 x Nokia 6210 @ £9.08 1 x Sony Erricson T610 @ £15.00 1 x Nokia 6230 @ £28.00
This makes £52.08 cash to me and £5.20 to Childline. All I need to do now is decide which worthy cause to donate the £52.08 (+ gift aid) too.
I figure that is better than just sending it off to a place as I decide which charity gets the money.
South London, GB , 05 Oct 2005
If any of you have lost your phones at Greenbelt they might be living another life now. If not claimed we often give them to people who haven’t made it into the mobile world yet or who are carrying around phones that would be better off in their cisterns! The ones that are bust we recycle wiuth Christian Aid.
GB , 08 Oct 2005
This is my first action as I have just signed up. Much less scary than asking a stranger to lunch One step at a time huh?
Leicester, GB , 27 Oct 2005
My old mobile got drowned when my milk bottle emptied inside my bag. I returned it to Carphone Warehouse. They gave me £5 off a new one. The salesperson also said they would take old chargers.
03 Jan 2006
I bought my 90 year old mum a mobile for Christmas. She absolutely loved it, but has since decided that she’s never going to use it. So she has returned it to me. I am planning to put my old SIM card in it and use it as my main one, so the old one will go to the local Oxfam shop as soon as I’ve got to grips with the new one (it’s a Vodafone Simply, designed for older people, so I ought manage it at nearly 53!)
Dundee, GB , 10 Jan 2006
I really, really don’t want to do this – I’d much rather keep my old mobile and carry on using it! The problem is that after three tiny little years its (planned?) obsolescence is coming to fruition. I first made a laughing stock of myself by going into the phone shop and asking for a replacement battery, but now the display is deteriorating and the signal isn’t very good either. So, I will buy a new phone and recycle the old one. Sigh.
05 Feb 2006
My annual mobile phone upgrade has came around recently and I’ve decided to keep using the phone I’ve had for the last year and to sell the new one on eBay, then donate the money to a good cause. I imagine it’ll fetch about 100 sqid, a pretty good amount :) After all, my current phone is perfectly fine…quite nice actually, and it really isn’t necessary to buy into comsumerism and wastefulness. I think of some of the household items my parents have, that were bought for them as wedding gifts more than 25 years ago. It puts my one-year-old phone in perspective!
12 Feb 2006
A friend lent us a mobile for the short duration of our need. How was that for kindness ?
19 Feb 2006
Or, if you’ve gone for an upgrade, even though your last phone was still functioning, give it away to a student or someone whose phone has gone phut: re-use before re-cyling
28 Feb 2006
mostly recycle them to friends, but have given to charities too
08 Mar 2006
Our children’s primary school is what’s known as an ‘eco school’ and one of their actions is recycling old mobiles. They also collect used printer ink cartridges. So the items get recycled and the school gets the money and the money gets spent on planting and outdoor spaces and so it all goes round.
11 May 2006
My current mobile has worked its way through all three kids in order of seniority, and I’ve had it for a year or so, but I recently dropped it and now it keeps going dead on me, so I think it’s time to buy a new one (although if I can hang on a bit longer, I might get my daughter’s old pink one because she’s saving to buy a new one!) I think it’s time to tackle the half dozen old phones my husband still keeps in boxes under the bed, too!
Gloucester, GB , 15 Jun 2006
I’ve recycled about 7 or 8 old mobiles now (both DH and I used to get regular updates through work mobiles) I’m not really a mobile freak – I’ve had my current personal one about 18 months, and only got a new one then as I left the old one in Portugal by mistake! Last one was donated to my children’s school – they get the money from the recycling co then
06 Dec 2006
I finally got to the point of sending my old mobile to Christian Aid for recycling – since I last posted here I had my new one stolen, got an insurance replacement, switched around various SIM cards so my kid could have a mobile at Greenbelt, and have just now reached the point where I’m sure we won’t need the old one, as we have one more phone than SIM card. Hurrah!
13 Feb 2007
currently using a phone i acquired on freecycle, with new battery purchased from amazon. (keeping the old battery for emergency back-up at greenbelt!) i see we’re not alone…how many other families buy extra phones with greenbelt in mind i wonder?!
Leeds, GB , 28 Feb 2007
Can anyone tell me where’s good for sending broken phones for recycling? I only ever change my phone when it breaks (which, considering I’ve had Nokias and Motorolas all my life, is quite often – no offence to anyone but they’re rubbish!) so I have loads of broken phones and don’t know what to do with them!
Leeds, GB , 02 Oct 2007
Saw on ‘The One Show’ last night that Fonebak are giving £5 to Children in Need for every mobile they receive. Doubly generous! All you need to do is pop them in an envelope and send to ‘Freepost Fonebak’. I’m going to sort mine out tonight. (They said they can use broken ones too)
Leeds, GB , 02 Oct 2007
Saw on ‘The One Show’ last night that Fonebak are giving £5 to Children in Need for every mobile they receive. Doubly generous! All you need to do is pop them in an envelope and send to ‘Freepost Fonebak’. I’m going to sort mine out tonight. (They said they can use broken ones too)
13 Sep 2008
Mobile phone industry continues to drive growth as mobile users are increasing at a very rapid rate. And people are eager to upgrade there handsets, to keep up to the market. It is good, but in this process old mobile phones are thrown somewhere at home or simply for land fill, which causes a very hazardous affect on environment. We all should move step forward for recycling mobile phones.