London Calling
After you’ve walked into that wireless store, checked out the cool phones, and after careful consideration, walked out with a fabulous new device, do you ever think about your old cell phone?
Rather than tossing it into the trash, like 130 million of its hapless compatriots, it might be worth your time to recycle it. According to Elizabeth Shogran of NPR, in her article, “EPA: Don’t Trash or Stash, Recycle Old Cell Phones,” the agency is encouraging folks to bring in their old phones to their local wireless stores, hoping to keep them out of the landfills and potentially saving several thousand pounds of copper, not to mention silver, and even gold.
National Cell Phone Recycling Week runs from April 5-11 this year. According to the EPA site by recycling the phones, “enough energy would be saved to power 10, 690 homes for a year.”
Sounds impressive doesn’t it? And recycling your old phone is virtually painless. You can bring the phone, as mentioned, to your wireless store, or even to places like Best Buy, or participate in a program like Samsung’s March to a Million in School Recycling Program, which aims to collect 1 million phones through middle and high schools throughout the country, with an incentive for schools to participate in a sweepstakes to win either a VIP concert by alternative rock band Hey Monday, or “one of 50 $1,000 ‘Green Grants,’ to help their school become more environmentally friendly.”
Or you could mail in your phone to the Wireless Foundation’s Call to Protect Program, which helps fund annually over $3 million dollars to help end domestic violence.
Whatever you do, if you do decide to donate your phone, be sure to erase all personal data. Don’t worry about being charged for any airtime; it’s likely that your old phone won’t be activated any more, but to be safe before you leave the wireless store with your new phone, double-check to make sure the old one has been deactivated.
This ain't no smartphone!
We all have an old phone or two lying around the house collecting dust, when a simple act of recycling could do wonders. Leave the world a little nicer than when you found it and blaze a trail for goodness.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us,
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Dawn is a budgeting queen!
{ 1 trackback }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Well, my phone is not quite as old as that one in the picture.
But it is at least 8 years old. Working fine and never even had to change a battery. People do tease me about it.
I figure if it ain’t broke, don’t replace it.
Good article about recycling. Yes, I will do that whenever IT happens.
I’ve seen your phone and it’s amazing. When it does finally die not only will we need to recycle it but we’ll need to have a proper funeral!
Thanks for this! Secondhand shop owners, because they handle so many underloved items, are dedicated to keeping a wide variety of things useful…even if we can’t resell them. Our “Pass It On” page offers consumers, too, many links to charities and ideas on how to help as many things as possible have second lives. Take a look! http://tgtbt.com/passiton.htm
Thanks, Kate, for that info and link. It truly pangs me to throw anything out (not that I am a hoarder LOL) but if we can keep as much stuff out of landfills as possible and possibly find a way to repurpose something, all the better!