Australian Government and telcos encourage mobile phone recycling

Australia’s telecommunications manufacturers and carriers together with Senator Don Farrell, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water, have launched the industry’s online video encouraging mobile phone recycling.

The video called ‘The Promise’ was launched at the Electronic Product Stewardship Future Forum in Sydney last week, hosted by MobileMuster for the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA).

In the video, mobile telecommunication companies illustrate the recycling process and ask Australians to help them keep old mobiles out of landfill by recycling them with MobileMuster.

The Promise is the industry’s new campaign to educate consumers about how the many materials in their old mobiles and accessories, such as precious metals and plastics, can be recovered and put back into the resource stream to make new products.

Senator Farrell commended the mobile telecommunications companies for continuing to lead the way in product stewardship through their free recycling service MobileMuster.

Senator Farrell speaking at the event.

“The Promise video is an entertaining and clever way of illustrating the real environmental benefits of keeping old mobiles out of landfill,” he said.

“MobileMuster’s action embodies the ideals of the Australian Government’s Product Stewardship legislation, which provides a foundation to help ensure we all share responsibility for the products we consume,”

“I encourage other industries to follow MobileMuster’s lead and help to minimise the environmental and human health impacts of their products and services.”

Every year the members of MobileMuster bring nine million new mobiles into Australia and collect 50% of those old mobiles no longer wanted by consumers, but at the same time there are still more than 22 million unused old mobiles sitting around at home.

A key challenge for the mobile phone industry is encouraging consumers to recycle those old and unwanted mobiles and accessories they have lying around in cupboards and drawers so they don’t end up in landfill.

“We have more than 4500 public drop-off points Australia wide and people can also post back their old mobiles for free, so accessibility to free recycling collection points should not be an issue,” said Rose Read, Recycling Manager for the AMTA.

“The Promise campaign will hopefully educate why we all need to recycle our old mobiles now and not leave them lying around at home unused.

“With this new video we hope that everyone appreciates the importance of recycling and the role it plays in looking after our environment.

“We also hope they will feel confident that when they recycle their old mobiles and accessories with MobileMuster they know they will be recycled in a safe, secure and ethical way.”

To view The Promise go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEKE_W60h2w&feature=youtu.be.