UK recycles the most mobiles
September 10, 2008 at 1:17 pm
A consumer survey released by Nokia has revealed that the UK is top of the global league when it comes to recycling mobile phones. 10% of people interviewed in the UK had recycled a mobile phone in the past, which doesn’t sound like an awful lot. However, when you consider that only 3% of people across the world have recycled a phone, the UK is well ahead of the pack.
The survey consisted of interviewing 6,500 people in 13 different countries, including Germany, Finland, USA, Nigeria and Brazil amongst others, to create a truly global picture of the state of mobile phone recycling. The aim of the survey was to find out about the attitudes and behaviours of people across the world, and also to provide information about Nokia’s own recycling schemes.
As well as the low rates of recycling in evidence across the world, the survey also revealed a large amount of ignorance on the matter. One fifth of people in the UK are unaware that mobile phones can even be recycled and the figure across the world is even worse, with an average of 50% saying they did not know it was possible.
Markus Terho, director of environmental affairs, said that if everyone who owns a mobile device brought back just one unused device we “could save 240,000 tonnes of raw materials”, which would be equivalent to “taking four million cars off the road” in terms of the amount of greenhouse gasses released.
Nokia has recently opened a new service outside their main Regent Street store, promoting greater recycling of handsets. Each new handset box sold will provide recycling information to increase awareness and will hopefully lead to a greater number of phones being recycled in the future.
I found this site useful – http://www.comparemobilerecycling.com which lists all service providers for value, green creds and personal data clearance which apparently is a big risk when recycling your phone.