We all want to do our part for the environment; many of us recycle our household waste where possible, use energy saving light bulbs, turn lights off and generally keep our carbon footprint as small as possible. However, when getting a new mobile or household product so many people will throw the old one out, or leave it gathering dust in the garage or at the bottom of a drawer.

Throwing out an electrical item can be very harmful to the environment and can cause all kinds of problems if not disposed of correctly. Electronic waste is one of the world’s biggest, rising problems and if not handled carefully mayget out of hand.

Mobile phone waste

One of the biggest contributors to our increasing electronic waste problem is the mobile phone. With updated models and new generations of mobile coming out every month people are replacing their handsets more frequently and throwing away the old ones without thinking twice. Mobile phone handsets contain a number of toxic chemicals including lead, mercury, copper and nickel, which will all harm the environment if left in our landfill sites. However there are ways around this by using a company that recycles the handset so that it isn’t producing toxic waste.

Mobile phone recycling

Companies are out there who will offer you money in exchange for your mobile phone handset and they will then refurbish or recycle it. Most people adopt an out of sight, out of mind approach to old mobile phones, either throwing them out or keeping them in a drawer. However if you stop to think about what it could do to the environment to chuck a mobile handset in the bin, you will soon see the benefits of using a mobile phone recycling company.

Cost

The cost of using these companies is usually free. Most offer a free quotation, free shipping and free deposit and because of this, you can actually make money by doing it. Even an older phone can make you ten pounds richer and whilst that won’t break the bank anytime soon, who can grumble at a free ten pounds!

Helping towards a cleaner environment

The companies who offer these services often do one of two things with it. The first is that they refurbish the phone, make it look and feel brand new, then sell it on. The second is used if it’s a model not in demand, they will scrap the elements used to make the product, reduce them down to their original form and then sell them on. As an example of this, there is apparently around 0.2 grams of gold in each mobile phone handset. Once a decent quantity are taken apart and stripped of their gold, it can be sold on, using the product rather than wasting it. The companies who offer these services and strip the products of the handsets often sell them back to the companies making the handsets. By doing this the companies are making use of the elements which would otherwise have been dangerous to our environment.