People love to recycle their papers and bottles, but what about their old phones?  There are 17 million phone users in Australia, but only 4% of those phones are eventually recycled. Nine percent end up in landfill.  That equates to 14 million old phones stored in cupboards for ‘just in case’ purposes (which never happen).  The only way they can be recycled is via special bins provided by AMTA, the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association.  These are located at good phone stores.  This scheme is funded by a levy paid by the phone manufacturers on each handset produced.

Everything is recycled – plastic cases are crushed and recycled in Melbourne for building products, circuit boards are sent to Canada for smelting to recover metals such as gold, palladium and copper. Batteries are sent to France for specialist smelting to recover metals to create new batteries.  Phones should not be put into either your home wheelie bins as they will end up as landfill, and the chemicals and metals are harmful to the environment.  So bring your old phones and help the environment.