One company in the US is helping mobile phone recycling in a different way. GreenCells recycles old mobiles and buys refurbished phones to help prevent old phones from being sent to landfill.
They aim to promote green behaviour through reuse which saves money and protects the environment. Users are encouraged to purchase quality used phones. GreenCells help people to extend the life of products and offer unique services like a one year warranty and 360° shipping. They aim to improve confidence with reuse programmes like trade-in/trade-up with savings of 50 to 80% over a new mobile phone.
GreenCells Co-President, Brian Moore says: “We believe there is a significant need for a marketplace that allows for this choice without the feeling you get when you buy something in a flea market, garage sale, or for that matter, eBay. What we offer brings “green” to the masses through value, rather than guilt,”
To date, through their reuse and recycling efforts, over 200,000 mobiles have been diverted from landfill. There is still a long way to go though, as according to the EPA, only about 10 percent of mobile phones in the US are currently recycled. Over the past 50 years, the amount of waste accumulated by each American has almost doubled from 2.7 to 4.5 pounds per day.