Go Green When Disposing of Your Old Cell Phone - Recycle Your Cell Phone

Cell phones are definitely a huge asset to all of us, the ability to get in touch with almost anyone, almost anytime and almost anywhere has made our lives a lot easier. We can keep in contact with our loved ones and never miss the opportunity to close a business deal.

There’s a lot of different price ranges for cell phones, but with newer technology basic phones without all the frills are really cheap. Lots of times cell phones are even offered free when you sign up for a new plan. The cheaper prices have made cell phones easily expendable.

According to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency, any where from 100 to 130 million cell phones are retired each year, with only around 20% of these being recycled. That means that around 80% of all cell phones ends up in waste fills polluting the earth!

The E.P.A along with many of America’s major cell phone makers, retailers and phone service providers have joined forces to make recycling your cell phone easier. They’ve launched a campaign to help educate consumers about what to do with phones once they’re no longer wanted.

Recycling 100 million cell phones would save enough energy to supply power to 194,000 homes in the US for a whole year. Just reusing that same number of phones would nearly double the amount of power conserved!

Cell phone circuits contain small amounts of gold, nickel and tantalum. Tantalum, sometimes called coltan, is a vital mineral in the manufacturing of cell phones, it is a metal with a high melting point.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo holds 80% of the worlds reserves of tantalum. Gorillas living in the Congo are being driven closer to extinction with the resulting destruction of their natural habitat from mining.

With ongoing civil and international wars going on in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, tantalum is often mined under inhumane conditions and fought over. Profits from mining tantalum are helping to supply money to continue these wars.

Another important reason to recycle those old phones is to keep them out of our landfills. Cell phones like batteries are small, but with millions of people across America disposing of them on a daily basis the amount is enormous.

It’s not that hard to do our part to help protect the gorillas, help conserve energy and help ease the burdens on our landfills. Voip has assembled a list of 50 places where you can recycle your old cell phone.

Many manufacturers are accepting old phones as trade-ins on new ones and many places will even buy the phone from you, so you’re not only helping the environment, but getting a little cash back.

You can even do your part to recycle and help our troops at the same time! There are even programs to donate cell phones to our military personnel so they can stay in touch with their loved ones!

No matter how you decide to recycle your cell phone, always remember to remove all of your personal information first. Just deleting items doesn’t mean they’re gone, visit the web site of your phones manufacturer to find the correct way to permanently remove the data.

Lot’s of us think, “I’m just one person, what can one person do?” Well, if everyone that thinks that would just even recycle a few things a week, the outcome would be tremendous!