Recycle your mobile phones and help a good cause
Shropshire residents are being urged to recycle their old mobile phones – and help a local charity – after new research found there are £2.7 billion worth of unused mobile phones in Britons’ drawers and cupboards.
All mobile phones brought to Shropshire’s household recycling centres are donated to Hope House children’s hospice, who then convert the phones into cash.
The household recycling centres are located at Shrewsbury (Battlefield Enterprise Park); Oswestry (Mile Oak Industrial Estate); Bridgnorth (Barnsley Lane); Whitchurch (Waymills Civic Park); Craven Arms (off Long Lane).
Each centre is managed by Veolia Environmental Services on behalf of Shropshire Council.
Councillor John Hurst-Knight, Shropshire Council’s deputy Cabinet member, said:
“I encourage all people to dig out any old mobile phones that they may have and take them along to their nearest recycling centre, which will boost our recycling rate and help a deserving local charity.”
Simi Epstein, Director of Fundraising at Hope House Children’s Hospice said:
“We are so grateful to Shropshire Council and Veolia Environmental Services for supporting us in this way. There is no doubt that the current economic situation is having an effect on our income and mobile phone recycling provides us with much needed funds that ultimately helps local terminally ill children and their families.”
Until October the recycling centres are open from 9am to 7pm from Monday to Friday, and 9am to 6pm on weekends and bank holidays
Other small waste electrical items including kettles, toasters, irons, laptops and games consoles can also be taken to a recycling centre.
Further information
The main channels for recycling of mobiles are the shops that sell them, but there are other organisations and charities that accept them for refurbishment and recycling. Up to 80 per cent of a phone is recyclable. TIP: Remember to delete all personal data from your handset before selling or recycling your old phone.
What are they made from?
Mobiles contain a range of materials including metals, plastics and several valuable components – such as silver – which can be extracted, melted down and used again in new electronics.
How/what happens when they are recycled?
Most schemes recover and re-use various parts from phones and their accessories.
Whole phones can be cleaned and resold in the UK and developing world.
Parts recovery may include:
• Separate metals recovery (including precious and semiprecious metals): The mobile parts are ground up and useful metal content extracted using electro-magnets. The metal from the batteries can be extracted separately and recycled too.
• Plastic recovery: energy-from-waste is used to recover plastic from components. Outer body plastic may be granulated and recycled separately by being reformulated and melted down for use in mouldings.
• Recovery and downgrading of valuable components: e.g. flash memory devices.
• Re-use of parts: Useful parts include aerials, battery connectors, PCBs (printed circuit boards), connectors including gold-coated edge contacts on PCBs, ICs (integrated circuits), keyboards, LCD screens, lenses, microphones, phone housings, screws, SIM card assemblies and speakers.
