How to dispose of mobile phones
Mobile phones, like computers, have a very short life. The average mobile phone owner will replace their mobile phone every 18 months. There are about 17 million mobile phones in use in Australia, and approximately 12.5 million in storage ready for disposal when their owners realise they have no value. The UK has approximately 20 million phones sitting in people's homes waiting disposal, and the US has 500 million. And research suggests that the vast majority of these are destined for landfill.
It is not just Western countries that are recognising the problems associated with the mobile phone industry's popularity. Many African countries are concerned with the impact of mobile phone waste. The Thai government is planning to draft a new law on the disposal of mobile phone waste. Old mobile phone sets and batteries have contributed to mountains of electronic waste in Thailand, and authorities have already begun a campaign urging the public to dispose of the phones and batteries at collection points.Two independent studies funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the State of California, reveal that obsolete or non-working mobile phones qualify as hazardous waste even with their batteries removed. Their hazardous status is a result of the use of toxic lead in the phones and their tendency to leach the lead content when deposited in landfill.
In a report "Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia" by a global toxic trade watchdog group called "BAN", it was revealed that 80 percent of electronic wastes collected for recycling in the US were actually exported to countries such as Pakistan, China and India. In these countries the phones were recycled by primitive and dangerously polluting methods, risking the lives of the poor recyclers. Discarded mobile phones are being 'recycled' in these other poorer countries.