Environmental Study Prompts Cell Phone Recycling Debate in Australia

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Environmental Study Prompts Cell Phone Recycling Debate in Australia

2:00 pm on August 2, 2007 | Category: Mobile Devices, Cell Phones, Regulation

Australia’s voluntary cell phone recycling program is ineffective, according to an undercover study by the Total Environment Centre, which found that just 3% of old handsets in the country are being properly recycled.

“This is pathetic. It’s one per cent less than last year and quite clearly it’s a scheme that we should stop wasting money on,” commented TEC’s Jeff Angel on ‘Mobile Muster,’ Australia’s industry-run voluntary recycling program.

TEC claims that less than 20% of mobile phone retailers are participating in the Mobile Muster program, and that only 38% of participating stores placed their mobile recycling bins in a visible location. Angel concludes that government regulations forcing recycling are the only effective solution.

Rose Read, the Australia Mobile Telecommunications Association’s recycling manager, has strongly criticized TEC’s study, however, as misdirected and misleading.

“It is misleading in the extreme for the TEC to claim that millions of mobile phones are making their way to landfills across Australia,” she said. “The most recent research completed by reputable, independent experts IPSOS has found that 82 percent of mobile phone owners choose to keep their old mobile phones or give them away to a family member or friend.”

“These handsets are not thrown into landfill,” Read insists. “The TEC wants people to believe that mobile phones are just like soft drink cans, plastic bags or newspapers - once used are thrown away.”

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I’m am doing a project on the subject of cell phone recycling and part of this project requirs me to conduct an interview with an expert in this field. I would apreciate it if the person reading this comment could point me in the direction of and expert that could email me back.

Thanks, Amy

Comment by Amy Langford — March 26, 2008 #