Cellphone recycling saves money, curbs environmental damage, but it’s still underused
By Molly Duffy, The Kansas City Star | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
The recyclers can help environmentally-friendly consumers upgrade to Amazon's recently announced Fire Phone, for instance, without feeling guilty. And they can help offset the cost of that newer phone.
But despite the benefits to recycling phones, the expanding industry still has a long way to grow. Just under 12 percent of cellphones are collected for recycling, says the most recent
The stream of old phones won't let up any time soon, either. The average cellphone shelf life had shrunk to 21 months in 2010, according to a Recon Analytics report. And that figure probably shortened further as wireless carriers, led by T-Mobile, shifted from strict two-year contracts to terms that encourage more frequent upgrades.
Trading in
What happens when a phone is traded in?
"The short answer," Verbrugge-Rhind said, "is it goes back into other customers' hands" --from savvy Americans getting discounts on almost-new iPhones to emerging-nation workers getting their first phones.
Most carriers and electronic stores -- and hundreds of websites -- offer incentives to keep phones from being thrown away or shoved into the back of a desk drawer. Those phones then go through a process that wipes all of their data and are sold back into the market, used for parts or melted down to pure commodities. So, many traded-in and donated phones wind up back where they started.
The cycle usually begins in phone carrier locations or electronics stores.
Electronics retailers such as
Nelson said the majority of traded-in phones are only 18-26 months old and tend to still be in good shape. Smart phones such as the iPhone 4, iPhone 4s and generations of Samsung Galaxy phones are frequently ditched -- because the people who bought them in the first place are the sort who like to have the latest and upgrade often.
Both stores offer store credit for the trade-ins. The credit earned at
"Especially in this culture, everybody wants the latest and greatest," Verbrugge-Rhind said.
Back into service
No matter where a phone is recycled, the data on it is cleared. Most places will wipe the data from a phone in front of a customer, effectively erasing all of your photos, contacts, texts and data. Then it heads to a facility, where it's reconfirmed that the device is completely clean.
Then phones have to be evaluated. Some are fit to be refurbished, and others are so far gone they have to be recycled. If there isn't any way to put life back into a phone, it's sent off to be responsibly recycled.
To ensure that recyclers, refurbishers and processers are handing cellphones responsibly, consumers can check if a company is E-Stewards certified. The certification goes only to companies that do not use prison labor, child labor or sweatshops. They also cannot dump hazardous e-waste in landfills or ship it to developing countries.
One company that focuses on recycling is
Unusable electronics can be broken down into pure commodities -- such as copper, silver and gold -- or they can be used for parts. Nelson said the vast majority of phones
Ninety percent of the phones Sprint buys back are eventually refurbished and resold, the company says. The 10 percent that can't be refurbished have been melted down to become jewelery, battery packs, car parts, plumbing faucets and even part of the bronze lion statue outside of the
Phones that are capable of a new life are sent to refurbishing factories --
"The phones really aren't in bad shape, but we all want the next generation," Shegerian said. "So there's a ton of buyers that buy that or buy this from secondary or tertiary (sales and services) markets and they're reused. Not everybody can afford new. None of that stuff is going to a landfill anymore."
One phone recycler, eRecyclingCorps of
Many markets outside the U.S. aren't subsidized, Bristow said. To keep consumer costs down, carriers offset the real cost of cellphones with contracts. Without subsidies, the upfront cost of a smartphone can reach up to
"We make an affordable, high quality phone available to someone who would otherwise not be able to afford one," Bristow said.
When there isn't a demand for a certain model of a phone domestically,
So that's the long answer. When you trade in an old phone, it can end up as a fully refurbished phone in someone else's hands, or as several tiny parts in dozens of other people's refurbished phones. Or a faucet. And it could be anywhere in the world.
To reach
Plenty to save
For every million cell phones recycled, the
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