A call to recycle those mobiles
Bottles and paper are recycled on a daily basis by many people, but when it comes to mobile phones hardly anyone in Warwickshire takes the greener option.
Warwickshire Waste Partnership is calling on people to remember to recycle their old mobile phones after it was revealed that only one in 10 people recycle their mobile phone, according to new research by Nokia.
VNU net reports that two thirds of respondents did not even think about recycling their devices, and nearly a fifth were unaware that it is even possible to do so, the mobile giant said.
Nokia found that most people have owned an average of five mobile phones, but that only nine per cent in the UK had recycled their old phone.
The research found that nearly half keep their old mobiles at home in a drawer, and about a fifth pass them on to friends or family. The rest are either resold, dumped into landfill or find another life.
Warwickshire County Council has facilities for recycling mobile phones at all nine Household Waste Recycling Centres. The mobile phones are then passed on to Guide Dogs for the Blind who raise funds through recycling them. All funds then go towards funding a guide dog puppy.
Cllr Martin Heatley, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for the Environment, said: “It was thanks to work in Warwickshire to recycle old mobile phones and printer cartridges that The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association funded the training of Warwick the Guide Dog. And we are now on course to fund a new puppy.
“Just think of the difference we could be making though if all those hidden mobile phones were recycled in the county.”
For more information, see http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/recyclewarks or http://www.guidedogs.org.uk