What Phone Recycling Achieves

You accomplish a lot by recycling your mobile phone for cash

Is it time for you to upgrade your old mobile phone? Are you looking for a new model that takes clearer pictures, lets you surf the Internet and allows you to send and receive e-mail messages with ease? If so, don’t simply toss your old mobile phone in the trash. Instead, consider recycling your mobile phone for money.

A growing number of private recycling companies offer consumers cash for their old mobile phones. It’s a relatively simple process, too: Consumers log onto Web sites such as MobilePhoneXchange.com or SellOldMobile.com and find or enter the phone model they want to recycle. They then find out how much the recycler is willing to pay for their old mobile phone.

If they like the offer, they mail their mobile phone to the recycler, which then sends out the payment that was agreed to upfront. It’s an easy way for consumers to make a quick £15 to £120 pounds or so, depending on the make and model of their unwanted mobile phones.

But what happens to your mobile phone when you send it off to be recycled? What are you accomplishing by recycling your old mobile phone for cash?

First of all, you’re doing a great service for the environment. Too many of the nation’s 90 million or so unwanted mobile phones end up in landfills. Here, they, along with other unwanted electronic equipment, take up valuable landfill space. They might also, depending on their age, leak potentially dangerous chemicals into the soil. This is certainly not a good situation for the environment.

Many of the mobile phones that are recycled are refurbished and sold at bargain prices. Some recyclers are purely philanthropic, and donate old mobile phones to charitable organizations or non-profits. This is important because there are many of these agencies who desperately need mobile phones but, in today’s tough economic times, can’t justify spending money on them.

Other times, your old mobile phone may be sent to developing countries. In many of these countries, the need for working mobile phones is great, but the financial means of residents to buy them is lacking.

If you send in a mobile phone that is no longer working, don’t fret: This act, too, will have a positive impact on the environment.

These phones are reprocessed. This means that their important parts – their metals, flash memory and plastics – are recycled while their other components are smelted for energy recovery. In short, everything useful is used, everything that’s not is turned into energy. This is truly a “green” solution.

Next time, then, that you need to upgrade your old mobile phone, don’t throw it in the trash or hide it in a dresser drawer somewhere. Make good use of your old phone by sending it to a private recycling company.

If you take this route, you’ll not only be doing good for the environment, you’ll be giving yourself the chance to make some extra cash. Recycling your mobile phone for money certainly won’t make you rich. But if you have the right make and model, it could return as much as £130 pounds. Even older models can bring back £20 to £40 pounds.

By selling your mobile for cash, then, you can make a positive difference. And if you do go this route, don’t forget to tell your friends, family members or co-workers about your positive experience. To make sure that as many people recycling their mobile phones for money as possible, it’s up to everyone to spread the word. It truly is one way to do a good deed for the environment.