Mobile phone recycling awards

Moonee Valley City Council and Eurobodalla Shire Council were joint winners of the prestigious ‘National Excellence Award’ for mobile phone recycling , which was presented by Senator Bob Brown at the National General Assembly for Local Government in Canberra at the 2009 MobileMuster Local Government Awards recently.

The MobileMuster Local Government Awards, now in their third year, were created by the mobile phone industry’s official recycling program to recognise and reward leading councils across Australia that have successfully promoted and collected old mobile phones, batteries and accessories for recycling.

Rose Read, Manager of Australian Mobile Telecommunication Association’s (AMTA) recycling program, MobileMuster, says Moonee Valley City Council and Eurobodalla Shire Council were jointly awarded as they not only collected a significant number of mobile phones, batteries and accessories for recycling but also actively promoted the MobileMuster program within the media and local community.

“Moonee Valley’s innovative Re-new program, which collects a range of re-usable and recyclable materials through an extension of its existing kerbside collection service, saw twice as many mobiles collected in February compared to its 2008 collection trials. The council now holds quarterly collections and also collects mobiles from the Civic Centre and promotes this in the area and on its website.

“Eurobodalla Shire Council, in partnership with WSN Environmental Solutions and MobileMuster, developed a system where specially marked MobileMuster recycling satchels are recovered through their material recycling facility from yellow-lidded recycling bins.

“In the past 12 months, local councils handed in over 3700 kg of mobile phones, batteries and accessories, which would have included more than 24,000 handsets and batteries, as well as 1500 kg in accessories. Local councils such as Moonee Valley City Council and Eurobodalla Shire Council play a vital part in the collection and recycling process,” said Read.

MobileMuster has over 3500 collection points nationwide, of which more than 700 drop-offs are hosted by 280 participating local councils.