Mazuma Mobile is extending it’s reach by going into the Australian mobile phone recycling arena.
The company was established in Britain in 2006 by a former Australian Charlo Carabott. So far, in Britain, £68 million has been paid out to users who’ve used Mazuma’s site to recycle their old mobile phones. Many of these
phones have been sent to other countries for re-use rather than being sent to landfill.
Mazuma now plans to spend more than 5 million Australian dollars collecting old phones from consumers in Australia, who are still reluctant to part with them.
The managing director of Mazuma Mobile Australia Aid Rawlins says that many people cling to the misconception they might need them one day. Regarding this, he said: “Of course, you rarely need to re-use the phone and after a while they start to stack up,”
The population of Australia is 22 million people and there are 24 million mobile phone subscribers. This shows what a huge opportunity Mazuma have with more than nine million new handsets arriving in the country every year. With the typical contract length being 18-24 months, many of these phones quickly become redundant.
According to the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, if the millions of redundant phones were recycled, the material recovered could produce 3.2 million aluminium cans, 160,000 plastic fence posts and
save the greenhouse gas equivalent of taking 5180 cars off the road.