How many phones have you owned over the past decade? Five? Ten? More? And how many of those early phones ended up in landfill? The good news is that in today’s environmentally conscious world, there are plenty of great options for recycling your old mobile. Here are some of the best ways to do it in Australia.
Sell it
There’s no shortage of startups offering you cold hard cash to part with your old mobile phone. While in some cases you may be better off selling your phone directly through somewhere like ebay, in many cases, getting anything at all for your old handset is going to be considered a victory Many of these companies even offer money for broken, unworking phones.
The important thing to do when trying to sell your mobile through one of these services is to shop around to make sure you’re getting the best possible price. Among the companies you should check out are Mazuma, Regadget, Cash for phones, Cashaphone and Money4mobiles.
Recycle It
If for some reason you feel guilty about earning money for recycling your phone, you can always go down the old fashioned route of recycling. There are a number of organisations that will recycle mobile phones – the biggest of which is Mobile Muster, which lets you either post or drop off your old mobile at a number of locations around the country, including Australia Post stores.
Other recycling alternatives include, The sony Foundation’s You Can initiative, which is raising money for youth cancer by refurbishing and reselling recycled mobile phones, or the Clean Up Australia recycling option of choice, ARP.
And if that’s not enough for you, some local councils will recycle phones as well.
Regift It
Generally, regifting is a frowned upon practice. But for some reason, regifting mobile phones always seems to go down pretty well. The vast majority of people (generally not including Gizmodo readers) aren’t necessarily after the latest and greatest features in their phones, so giving them your old Motorola Razr might be acceptable (so long as it’s still in good condition).
If you can’t find someone within your immediate circle of friends to takke your old mobile off your hands, you could perhaps widen the search using a service like Freecycle, a community based forum where you can both find bargains or rid yourself of unwanted products.
But Don’t…
…Dump your old phone in your garbage bin. There are so many options around for recycling your old phones (and old gadgets) that you can either make money, raise money for charity, or simply get the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from giving someone something they want. Given that about 90% of your mobile phone can be recycled to make new products, if everybody opts to recycle phones instead up dumping them, the difference to the environment would be staggering.