Recycling Mobile Phones

Mobiles contain a range of materials including metals and plastics. Many of the raw materials are mined from the earth and can therefore be extracted and recycled –  this includeds valuable components – such as cobalt, silver and gold. They also contain batteries that need to be properly disposed of.

When a phone cannot be refurbished to be resold then mobile phone recyclers may then recover parts that can be used to recondition other mobile phones before breaking the phone down into its sortable materials for recycling.

Recycling processes may include:

• Parts Recovery: With the rise of high-end mobile phones there is considerable value in extracting working components to refurbish other phones. These parts may include LCD screens, digitizers, camera assemblies, circuit boards, flash memory cards and speakers.
• Metals recovery: Metal components are extracted from the device before been separated by type and ground up. They are then recycled by type of material.
• Plastic recovery: Plastic can be recovered from the components by recycling processes. Complete plastics may then, depending on type, be shredded and recycled.
• Glass Recovery: certain mobile phones now contain glass that can be separated from the device and recycled.

Many manufacturers have signed up to the Basel Convention agreeing to cooperate with developing environmentally sound management to end-of-life mobile phones. Several manufacturers are also using recycled materials within their new products.

Give your old phone to a member of your family or friend, what’s outdated to you may be hi-tech to your mother. Re-using is a great way to recycle mobile phones!