Recycling Phones & The Environment

It is a great time to recycle your mobile phone, you can earn money for those all important pounds which you need at christmas! You can earn up to £200 from online companies such as mobile phonee xchange, where you just simply post your phone to them. They even take damaged phones.

With all the hi-tech waste that’s generated these days, it’s good to know that there are easy ways to dispose of your old mobile phones, which are harmful to the environment if you just chuck them in the garbage. With today’s increasingly green-conscious world, more people are looking for ways to help out and make it a cleaner, safer place for the next generation. Like all electronic devices, mobile phones contain heavy metals that, if allowed to leech into the soil, will pollute the environment with potentially disastrous results down the road.

Recycling also means that materials that have already been taken from the environment via mining and so forth are reused, thereby cutting down on the drain on the earth’s resources, which are not, contrary to what some people seem to think judging by their throw-away attitude, infinite. Recycling hi-tech waste like old mobile phones also saves energy since raw materials don’t have to be refined, and refining is extremely energy intensive. It also means that the cost of electronics will decrease without the use of raw materials and their expensive extraction methods, plus recycling creates jobs.

If you’re not sure how to have your old mobile phone recycled, Apple has a free programme that makes it really easy to do. All you have to do is visit their website and fill in a form, and they’ll send you a prepaid address label, which you just print and stick to your package, then simply chuck it in the mail and they take care of the rest. It’s good to know that some manufacturers are prepared to offer free disposal of mobile phones and the like to help preserve our environment. Now it’s up to us to make use of this and help keep our environment safe for our kids.

We recommend using an online service such as mobilephoneexchange, to earn back money as you recycle!

It Makes Sense to Recycle!

Here is a bit of research
and further insight into the
current financial crisis:

If you had purchased £1000 of Northern
Rock stock one year ago, it would be
worth £4.95 today. With HBOS, you
would have £16.50 left of the original
£1000. With XL Leisure, you would have
less than a fiver. And if you had
purchased £1000 of Seguro Air Lines
stock, you would have a measly 49p.

However, if you had purchased £1000
worth of Tennent's Lager one year ago,
drank the lot of it, then re-cycled
the cans at an aluminium plant for a
cash refund, you would have £214. And
so, based on the above information,
the best current investment advice is
to drink heavily and recycle.

Majority of Mobile Phones not Being Recycled

Global consumer survey reveals that majority of old mobile phones are lying in drawers at home and not being recycled!

This is from a Nokia press release I got sent. Come on People, RECYCLE your old mobiles. You can sell them on ebay, or send them off for recycling. We don't want mountains of old mobile phones, do we? They also contain many very useful metals which can all be re-used. Please read below for more info.

Espoo, Finland - Only 3% of people recycle their mobile phones despite the fact that most have old devices lying around at home that they no longer want, according to a global consumer survey released by Nokia today. Three out of every four people added that they don't even think about recycling their devices and nearly half were unaware that it is even possible to do so.

The survey is based on interviews with 6,500 people in 13 countries including Finland, Germany, Italy, Russia, Sweden, UK, United Arab Emirates, USA, Nigeria, India, China, Indonesia and Brazil. It was conducted to help Nokia find out more about consumers' attitudes and behaviors towards recycling, and inform the company's take-back programs and efforts to increase recycling rates of unused mobile devices.

Markus Terho, Director of Environmental Affairs, Markets, at Nokia said, "It is clear from this survey that when mobile devices finally reach the end of their lives that very few of them are recycled. Many people are simply unaware that these old and unused mobiles lying around in drawers can be recycled or how to do this. Nokia is working hard to make it easier, providing more information and expanding our global take-back programs." He added, "If each of the three billion people globally owning mobiles brought back just one unused device we could save 240,000 tonnes of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gases to the same effect as taking 4 million cars off the road. By working together, small individual actions could add up to make a big difference."

The findings highlight that despite the fact that people on average have each owned around five phones, very few of these are being recycled once they are no longer used. Only 3% said they had recycled their old phone. Yet very few old devices, 4%, are being thrown into landfill. Instead the majority, 44%, are simply being kept at homes never used. Others are giving their mobiles another life in different ways, one quarter are passing on their old phones to friends or family, and 16% of people are selling their used devices particularly in emerging markets.

Globally, 74% of consumers said they don't think about recycling their phones, despite the fact that around the same number, 72%, think recycling makes a difference to the environment. This was consistent across many different countries with 88% of people in Indonesia not considering recycling unwanted devices, 84% in India, and 78% of people in Brazil, Sweden, Germany and Finland.

The survey revealed that one of the main reasons why so few people recycle their mobile phones is because they simply don't know that it is possible to do so. In fact, up to 80% of any Nokia device is recyclable and precious materials within it can be reused to help make new products such as kitchen kettles, park benches, dental fillings or even saxophones and other metal musical instruments. Globally, half of those surveyed didn't know phones could be recycled like this, with awareness lowest in India at 17% and Indonesia at 29%, and highest in the UK at 80% and 66% in Finland and Sweden.

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."

Many people interviewed for the survey, even if they were aware that a device could be recycled, did not know how to go about doing this. Two thirds said they did not know how to recycle an unwanted device and 71% were unaware of where to do this.

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 www.nokia.com/werecyle.

Responding to the survey findings Nokia is developing a series of campaigns and activities to give people more information on why, how and where to recycle their old and unwanted devices, chargers and mobile accessories. The company is also expanding its global take-back program by adding many more collection bins and promoting these in store to raise greater awareness.

You Can also Recycle Mobile Phones at Envirophone, mobile phone xchange and 3 Mobile.

Ethical Superstore Sale - Save 80%

The Ethical Superstore currently has an amazing sale on eco-friendly and ethically produced items.

There are over 300 items in the sale, including cool eco-gadgets such as
water-powered calculators (£2.99) and wireless energy monitors (£34.99).

Eco Friendly Electronics at Digital Direct

Digital Direct have launched Eco Direct, where it presents the greenest electronic products available from it's site. Eco Friendly products include plasma tvs & DAB radios from top brands such as Sony and Pure Digital.

"It’s important for us to take care of our environment and look after our planet and more and more manufacturers are trying to do the same. Here we have created a collection of all the products we currently sell that will help you to reduce your carbon footprint."

So head on over to digital direct to compare these products power consumption and how they were manufactured.

Free Envirosax Eco Bag with Lonely Planet Guides

Lonely Planet is offering a free Envirosax Eco Bag and free shipping in June!

Envirosax is a well known eco brand and Lonely Planet readers will should snap this up!

John Lewis Goes Green

John Lewis have split their website into key eco areas to help customers buy environmentally-responsible products - Take a look for yourself!

Energy-efficient
If you'd like to do more to cut down on energy consumption, invest in the latest appliances and gadgets

Organic
If you want to reduce your exposure to complex man-made chemicals, find nature-friendly and sustainable options

Fairly-traded
If you'd like to help communities in need to grow and prosper, fair trade's the right direction

Sustainable
If you want to make sure the products you buy have been sourced responsibly, you have choices

Recycling
If you like the idea of new from old and reducing waste, choose recycled

Well done John Lewis!

Biodegradable Picnics

Here's a novel eco-friendly way to enjoy time out in the countryside or at a festival without leaving a harmful trace of your shenanigans.


This whole picnic set with the exception of the cloth will return itself back to nature, leaving you guilt free about your impact on your favourite beauty spot. It even comes in biodegradable packaging!

It's not Easy Being Green

Just found this cool site about a BBC programme - 'its Not Easy Being Green'



They have some superb video clips with ecellent green tips and examples of how people are reducing their energy bills, with help from Dick of course!

Check out Dick, hes a dude! That moustache is the greenest on the planet!


I found this excellent link while checking out the newspaper Briquette Maker on evengreener. Apparently this product was featured on the show. This device turns waste newspaper into fuel for heat for just £20!

Fairtrade Tea from CafeDirect

Our office has gone a bit greener this week with the addition of Fairtrade Tea from Cafedirect! I have been drinking this fairtrade tea all week and have ditched the PG tips.

Cafedirect work with 270,000 growers, encompassing 39 grower organisations across 13 developing countries, to bring people the best tasting and highest quality coffees, teas and drinking chocolate.

Growers of the tea are paid above market prices, and much of the profits are fed back into the growers businesses and communities. This money funds training and development programmes, empowering them to build a better, sustainable future.

You can order the delicious tea from the Ethical Superstore.