Insight Community

My colleague James Governor wrote an insightful post about Twitter as a social amplifier, pointing to @WildLifeDirect as an example of raising awareness around issues of importance. His punchline:

picture of Koikai courtesy of WildlifeDirec. If you have a spare tri-band phone he might like it…

Data about mobile phone take up in Africa suggests that mobile will be the way to go rather than traditional PC or laptop based networks. Although this study is 3 years old, it clearly shows an anticipated explosion on growth of GSM networks. the last fgiures I saw suggested there are some 100 million mobile phone users in Africa as of 2007. Growth continues at a fast pace but it still represents penetration of around 1:40 people. There is along way to go.

A big problem is the cost of devices which can be the equivalent of a month's wages in some countries. It therefore makes sense to consider donating to charitable institutions who offer relief and aid to African nations. Recycling 4 Africa offers a service where it will regenerate and sell on into African countries:

We would appreciate your help in making this a success and our ultimate goal is to raise funds to build a hospital for the local people in one of the African countries.

It should not be that difficult to persuade large companies like Goldman Sachs with its tens of thousands of staff, the same at SAP, Oracle, IBM...the list goes on...to use this type of service as a safe way to dispose of phones at least cost while acting in a socially repsonsible manner.

The kudos that attaches to these kinds of initiaitve should not be under estimated. Companies now recognize there is brand value in not simply having policies for corporate social repsonsibility but in being seen to act upon them. 

 

 

There are numerous places that will pay cash for old phones, or allow for charitable donations. 

 The easiest step-by-step method for cellphone recycling: google for cellphone recycling and donation programs, read through and decide which is best for your specific needs.  I don't want to specifically plug anyone to imply any personal endorsement or preference, but there are a LOT of programs out there.  I googled "cellphone recycling" and the majority of the links on the first page appear to me to be strong, relevant programs.

Wiping the memory of a phone or any digital device that contains personal information is the minimum necessary security step in order to protect your privacy.  I would never get rid of any data storage device without taking this step.  Be sure to follow up with recyclers to see if they erase the phones anyways, which they should, but also erase it for your own peace of mind yourself in case they "forget".

 Choosing a phone that will last is a simple proposition.  I look at a manufacturer that makes a lot of phones.  I notice that the top newest/most expensive phones are usually of a slightly different design/model than the majority of the other phones.  So there are usually 2 main tracks: the brand new phone, and then their other phones.  I buy the nicest model in the "other" design line.  This nets me a phone that has a lot of features, but is not so new in design that it is likely to have major design flaws/recalls that limit its resale value.   It's the phone equivalent to waiting for a car design to change, then buying the newest previous model, meaning the most refined one they will ever make (since the old design has been altered).

 

The BEST way to dispose of an old cell phone is any method that is the most convenient for you, as long as two important criteria are met.  First, you must be sure that all personal data is erased (your phone may contain pictures, text messages, phone numbers, addresses--some people even keep their account numbers and PINs stored in their phone or PDA).  Second, your phone should be disposed of with an organization that will re-use the device, or properly recycle it if it is no longer usable (broken or too old).  A good recycler will be registered as an ISO 14001 organization, which means it has been audited and found to have the highest standards relating to disposal of electronic wastes, batteries, and device chargers.  A great recycler will be carbon neutral (see below).

Once those criteria are met, you can choose your disposal method.  Most good organizations have a mail-in system, whereby you can mail in the devices you wish to dispose of.  Many have a postage paid envelope for you to use.  Other organizations provide drop-off locations where you can drop your phones in person.  Some mobile carriers have both types of collection; for example, T-Mobile provides a postage paid mailer bag in all their new phones, whether sold on line or sold in their corporate retail stores.  You can also leave your old phone in any T-Mobile corporate store (or drop them off there) and the devices will then be data cleared and re-sold to provide funds to Huddle Up (T-Mobile's excellent charity partner.)  All phones and PDAs collected by T-Mobile have the data erased, so this is safety and security for the person making the donation.  All scrap is recycled by an ISO 14001 partner.  This is the BEST way to dispose of your phone after you buy a new device at T-Mobile.

There are other excellent charities that accept donations of phones and PDAs to benefit various good causes.  The best two I have seen are www.charitablerecycling.com and www.charitablerecycling.ca.  Both sites allow you to direct your contribution to almost any charity of your choice, while providing the security of data clearing all devices and ISO 14001 disposal.  These sites also advertise that they are carbon neutral, which means they have offset their carbon footprint by planting trees or purchasing renewable energy credits.  This is the BEST way to donate your old phone to a charity.

If you would prefer to get paid for your old device instead of donating them to charities, there are web sites where you can trade-in your old device for merchandise discounts or outright cash.  Motorola's Go Green Get green link on their home page (www.motorola.com) offers trade-in value plus discounts toward a new phone purchase.  At www.myboneyard.com, you can trade in your phone in exchange for an American Express gift card for the specific value of the device(s) you send in.  This process seemed much simpler than posting on eBay, waiting for your auction, and waiting for your PayPal transaction (especially if you do not havea PayPal account).  Both these programs offer complete data clearing, ISO 14001, and are carbon neutral.  These are the BEST ways to trade in your phone or sell your old device on line.

In summary, the BEST way to dispose of an old cell phone is the most convenient method of the many available methods, as long as you make sure (1) all your personal data is erased and (2) all electronic scrap will be properly recycled.

Old phones should be returned to the manufacturer for recycling. This is actually law in several countries, and it makes much better sense than having them sit in a drawer - and much better than throwing them away, which provides environmental hazards due to the amount of heavy metal etc they contain.

Actually, when the manufacturer receives the  ;phone, they (or rather, some Chinese subcontracto r) removes all the usable circuits (there are  various ways of doing this), melts down  ;the rest, and recycles the metals and plasti cs if they can be used. 

Since the  recycling time is nowadays pretty short (if t he "platform" of the manufacturer is use d in more than one phone, they will just  move large parts of the circuitry into  the next phone), memory should always be wipe d - it often happens that "new" pho nes come with settings from the previous user . 

The manufacturers should really pay for&nb sp;phones they get back (in some countries, t hey do give you a rebate if you bring&nb sp;in your phone when you get a new one) , but often they do not. 

There are  ;also several charities which recycle phones. In&n bsp;the UK, for instance, Vodafone sponsored a&nbs p;charity where women could get a phone progr ammed with the emergency number of the police  or womesn helpline on all buttons, so it did not matter wha t they pressed, they got connected immediately.&nb sp;This was intended for women under threat,  for instance from former spouses, and worked  well as far as I know. Other charities r efurb the phones and use them in developing&n bsp;countries. There used to be a market for& nbsp;old phones, but people in developing countrie s also want the latest phones, and anyway&nbs p;this is not very profitable. But it is  ;a great way for aid orgainziations to get&nb sp;mobile phones, for instance. 

Personally, I&nbs p;have never selected a phone based on re-use  value, since my assumption has always been&n bsp;that it would be recycled anyway. Or else , it got stuck in a drawer.

 

So&nb sp;the recycling steps are:

1. Phone is retur ned to store

2. Distributor receives phone, s ends to recycling center

3. Recycling center  removes usable components

4. Unusable components a re melted, plastics and metal recycled

5. Usa ble components are sold to manufacturers, re-used& nbsp;in new phones

6. Distributor buys new ph one from manufacturer, sells to store with di scount from operator. 

 

That is at  ;least how I think it works. 

 

Hop e this helps

 

//Johan 

U.S. consumers typically replace their cell phone once every 18 to 24 months according to the Environmental Protection Agency.  That fact means that we discard over 125 million phones per year in the U.S. alone contributing 65,000 tons of waste per year assuming that we do not recycle or refurbish any of those phones.  Fact is that approximately 70% of all cell phones are either refurbished or resold leaving 37.5 million phones for landfills or recycling centers.  The truth is that most of those cell phones sit in closets or basements in a heap of electronic debris. 

Recycling or reselling these phones is often more difficult than it is worth so many people choose to toss them in a box instead of disposing of them properly.  People tend to take the path of lease resistance so if the processes are too difficult, they won't do it.  The easiest way to ensure that almost 100% of the phones are being recycles or refurbished is to have the retailers take responsibility for collecting the old phones.  Some retailers including Sprint are now accepting old phones and sometimes giving credit towards the purchase of a new phone.  If you make it easy, then consumers will adopt the practice of recycling their old phones.  Dell will take back an old computer when a consumer purchases a new one from them.  They even send a shipping container for it.  The retailer can then sell the old phones to a recycler who will properly dispose of the items.  Manufacturers relate the IMEI (international mobile equipment identifier) of the phone to a web site that details the proper dismantling procedure.  The IEEE has standards (IEEE 1680) that describes how to recycle personal computers.  This same standards process can be extended to cell phones and other mobile devices.

Consumers have a variety of options to dispose of phones by their own means.  Attempt to resell it on Craig's List or Ebay.  There may be someone that will purchase it if the price is right and the phone is not too old.  Places like Cell for Cash buy old phones from people but they limit their buy-backs to only the most popular models.  A quick Google search will list several companies that all for donations of cell phones for certain causes or help create fundraisers for cell phone donations.  I have seen drop boxes for cell phones in churches, grocery stores, and civic organizations.  Collective Good and ReCellular are two companies that organize these donations. T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon each use ReCellular to manage their phone recycling program.

The best process of disposing of an old cell phone is to be prepared to exchange it with the carrier at the time of purchase for  a new cell phone.  Bring all of the old packaging, if still available, phone, and accessories to the retailer.  While they are activating the new phone, perform a factory reset of the old phone.  Most phones have this feature available on the options menu.  This way all personal information will be erased before the battery dies and the phone is forgotten.  If the phone is to be resold or given to a charitable organization, reset the old phone after all useful information is retrieved from it, and retire it to its packaging before it is sold or donated.   

Most people do not worry about the resale value of their phone unless it costs them hundreds of dollars.  Carriers’ subsidizing of phones’ cost has made most consumers ignore the resale value of their phone unless it is a smart phone.   Technology improvements accelerate depreciation of these phones to the point where considering their resale value is not taken into account when purchasing the device.  The best consumers can hope for is a modest rebate when they purchase a new phone and that their carrier will responsibly recycle or resell the device.

Like most Europeans, we've been switching phones every one to two years for the last 10+ years, and the issue of the best route for recycling the "old" phones is a real problem.

Beyond keeping an old phone (or two) for backup and nostalgia purposes (I've a Nokia 6680 as a backup, and a Nokia 2110 as a momento), we find the easiest route is to pass last year's devices down to family members and friends, that way our kids get a nearly new phone everytime we upgrade, so they're happy too.

 As for the older phones that trickle out of the bottom of the hand-me-down cycle, these generally get donated to charity, or in one memorable case where an operator offered $100 off an upgrade in exchange for a working phone, they probably weren't expecting to get a heavily used 8 year old Motorola!

I think our approach is reasonably efficient, and by the time the phones drop out of our hands they've been heavily used, and are in some cases reaching the ends of their useful life. With regards to privacy and data security, we wipe the memory and if possible perform a firmware upgrade before passing the phone on.

 

 

 

Resell Your Cell

So you craved a new iPhone and eventually succumbed to temptation. What should you do with last year's must-have cellphone, now gathering dust in your desk drawer?

1) Never, Ever, Throw Your Cellphone Into The Trash

Cellphones contain a whole lot of good stuff (from a recycling point of view) and nasty stuff (as far as mother earth is concerned). Instead of throwing the phone into the garbage, find another way to dispose of it. Here are some of the ingredients that went into your cellphone: lead, beryllium, tantalum, arsenic, copper and... brominated flame retardants (gulp). I will leave it to your imagination to work out which can be recycled and which are best not dumped in a landfill!

2) Sell To A Specialist Business

A lot of businesses have emerged that are willing to buy old cellphones. These business aim to refurbish and resell the phone, often to customers in Latin America, Eastern Europe or Asia. Most will give you a quote on-line, and you get paid when they receive the phone through the mail. Chances are you will get the best price for your old phone by shopping around these businesses. Some of the better-known firms are:

• Recellular http://www.recellular.com claim to be the world leader at refurbishing and reselling mobile phones.
• CellForCash http://www.cellforcash.com have a website which makes it easy to get a quote.
• Simplysellular http://www.simplysellular.com are similar to CellForCash.
• TradeMyPhone http://www.trademyphone.com will accept an old phone in trade for a new one.

There are many many more sites, most with names that are variations on the buy/sell-my/your-cell/phone.com theme. If you want the most cash, then get on the web and be prepared to click around for the best deal. But be realistic - a phone that was cheap when you got it five years ago is not going to become more valuable over time. This is why most people end up saving themselves the trouble of selling a phone for a couple of bucks and instead opt to...

3) Give To Charity

Many worthy causes have linked up with commercial operations, turning the donation of an old cellphone into an act of charity. Here are a few varied examples, but there are many charities and not-for-profit organizations that have similar schemes.

• Cellphones for Soldiers http://www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com turns cellphones into credits so US troops can call home from overseas.
• CollectiveGood http://www.collectivegood.com will recycle phones and provide donations to the charity of your choice. Many charities with phone recycling schemes have CollectiveGood as their logistical partner. Phones can be posted directly or dropped off at Staples and Fedex/Kinkos stores.
• Recellular have a similar program to CollectiveGood where donated phones result in charitable donations.
• Ecophones http://www.ecophones.com partners organizations like schools so they can use phone recycling as a way to raise funds. Ecophones pays for every phone, even if it is broken, and offer free collection as an alternative to free postage.
• The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund http://www.gorillafund.org/conservation/fieldnews_item.php?recordID=16 uses the money raised from recycled phones to protect Gorillas. Recycling is doubly beneficial as the mining of ores used in phone manufacture has destroyed the natural habitat of some gorillas.
• Call To Protect http://www.wirelessfoundation.org/CalltoProtect provide refurbished phones to victims of domestic violence for use as an emergency lifeline. Other phones are sold and the proceeds used for educational programs to counter violence in the home.

4) eBay

Did you read what I said above about being realistic? If you are one of those people who must always have the latest super-duper gadgets, then you can make good money reselling all your not-quite-latest super-duper gadgets on eBay. The rest of you might as well just sell it direct to a business unless you happen to have business connections in Brazil or Bulgaria, because the chances of finding an interested customer will not be great.

To successfully sell on eBay, the key thing is offer a handset that is still new enough, and still fancy enough, that somebody will regard it as a premium toy to play with it. So the device must be high-end and probably no more than 18 months old. If you offer a device with functionality that has already entered the middle or low-end product ranges of major manufacturers, your chances of making more money via eBay are reduced. Also consider if your phone had a good reputation and is well-liked. If user reviews were terrible when the handset first came out, chances are there will be nobody searching to buy one second-hand a year later. But particular manufacturers and devices will attract strange cult followings that will boost the resell value. For example, anything made by Apple can be assumed to beat the averages. But if your phone is dated, scratched, and does what everybody else's does, forget about it. Saying all that, you may want to ignore what I say because there are plenty of chumps out there...

By the way, never ever buy a device in the expectation you can make good money from selling it after you have used it. First, just opening the box knocks 40% off the value. If you are like me, you will have dropped, scratched, bashed and chipped the device plenty enough to account for the remaining 60% long before you get bored of it. Second, you cannot tell what will be fashionable, and what will be unfashionable, by the time you sell the device. Whilst some selling points continue to appeal years later, others make a big bang and disappear soon after. I bought one of the first WAP-enabled phones - enough said? Finally, if the phone does retain significant value, it must be because it retains novelty or rarity value. So the phone must be made in relatively small numbers compared to demand, and rival manufacturers must never produce good alternatives. If that is true, it is very likely that you paid a premium to buy the phone in the first place. Selling the phone later on just means recouping some of the premium you paid at the outset. So buying to resell is not good economic sense. You are better off buying a phone you like and assuming that once the money is spent you will never get it back. Anything you do get back is a bonus, either for you or your charity.

5) Give To A Friend

Your phone is unlocked, it is pretty new, and you want to do something good for the environment. Why not give it to a friend or family member? Remember that the manufacture of new phones leads to the mining of precious minerals. It also takes energy to make the handset, and then to transport it. If you sell the handset, more energy is spent on transporting it. All of that could be saved, lowering your carbon footprint. There may be someone you know who is considering getting a new phone. Instead of encouraging them to buy yet another new phone, which will probably end up gathering dust in a drawer in a few years' time, think of the environment and encourage them to use one of the spare handsets you own. Recycling can begin at home! Giving a second-hand gift may not seem very generous, but if it saves the earth your friends and family may appreciate the thought.

6) And Finally

Do delete the contents of your phone's memory before you sell it or give it away. Most recycling outfits will blank the memory of phones as part of the refurbishment process, but there is no reason to take chances. Your contact numbers are unlikely to be as desirable to the paparazzi as Paris Hilton's, but somebody out there may want them. Numbers used to be saved to SIMs, but these days the device itself tends to store numbers and a whole lot more, so be thorough about blanking the device's memory before your recycle. Details like phone numbers, addresses, emails, and possibly far more, depending on how sophisticated your device is, can be a boon to criminals involved in identity theft. Got a few pictures of you stored on the memory? Best to delete those too before somebody decides to pretend to be you on the internet. People store all sorts of data on their phones. Criminals realize that details like the names of your children or the date of birth of your spouse may also serve as your passwords. And your friends will not appreciate it if their numbers get in to the wrong hands, leading to prank or abusive calls. If nothing else, people often forget to back up information and then regret it later, so be methodical about ensuring you copy all the data you need and delete it from the phone as you do. There are plenty of dubious people out there, so take no chances!

 

 

 
I'd  suggest  that some  of  the best  recycling comes  from  avoiding  being  a  mega-consumer.    
Pick  your  phone  carefully  and  stick  with  it  for a  few  years.   However,  this could  be  harder  as  
new  phones  start  springing  up  to  meet  the  open  networking  standards  and  compete  with  the  
many  great smartphones  now  available.   Also, switching  providers after  your  initial  contract can  
reduce  the  cost  of getting  the  latest  technology  at  the  lowest  price  and  this  leaves  you  with  an  
old  phone  as  well.   

So.....  if  you  must  toss  your  phone  here  are  some  guidelines:  

Where can old phones be recycled or donated?

I'd say usually you'll want to use your phone store recycling program when you pick up the new phone. 
Now that Office Depot has got recycling as well that's an easy way to go for old phones.

Do you wipe the memory before you give it away?
Yes!   Especially if you take a lot of pictures or you are Paris Hilton.   The store can usually handle this for you, though if you want to make sure you wipe things you may want to ask to check the phone after they perform the reformat.

Step-by-step best practices for phone recycling/disposal.

1. Close or move accounts

2. Backup your data

3. Wipe your data using a reformat of the phone memory.    Not sure how?  Take it to the phone store to do this.

4. Recycle phone at Office Depot or at the phone store.

Do you know of any creative (or charitable) projects that have re-purposed old cell phones?

No personal experience, but see list below.  I'm skeptical these are worth the trouble unless you have hundreds of phones to recyle.   Phones of value should just be sold on EBAY, and then donate that money to your favorite charity and cut out these charity middlemen.

Have you cleverly picked phones that retain their value on the used market?  If so, how did you choose a phone based on its re-sale value?

Yes I have been clever...well....maybe.  I'd say that resale value is not a good way to pick electronic devices because even the best ones will depreciate in value quickly due to technological improvements.   I do think picking a long term phone makes sense, and my almost 3 year old Treo 650 has had it's problems but remains a "good enough" device even by the latest standards.   I'll probably switch when iPhone like Google phones come out later this year. 

Walmart's stats say that Americans recycle only 2% of the 130 million used cellphones created each year. So the first thing to do when recycling your phone is congratulate yourself for being one of the few!

A cell phone's memory should definitely be wiped before recycling. This site offers handy instructions, but there's also another important step. Delete any personal photos before wiping the memory, since copies could be stored on the provider's network. Last summer T-Mobile apparently reassigned a customer's photo storage area to a new T-Mobile customer. It made headlines when T-Mobile received a call from a customer asking why their new cellphone arrived with dirty pictures pre-installed...

Though it's not widely known, there are a surprising number of options when it comes to the recycling cellphones. (California actually passed a law requiring retailers to offer no-cost take-back and recycling programs.)

• Verizon Wireless collects used cellphones — from any provider — to raise money for domestic violence programs and shelters. They'll even accept cellphone parts, and what they can't use they'll recycle "in an environmentally sound way.


• AT&T will accept donated cellphones at all 1,800 of their company-owned stores. They're selling them to Recellular, Inc., which sells (and buys) used cellphones. Currently they're involved in a campaign called Cellphones for Soldiers, in which the proceeds from recycling go towards prepaid calling cards for overseas troops.


• Apple will accept any cell phone for its recycling program, mailing anyone a pre-paid envelope, free.


• Recellular also accepts donations — they're the world's largest recycler of cellphones, and they're working with WalMart and Best Buy. They offer a searchable database of over 40,000 recycling locations, and let you select which charity will benefit from your donation.


• RecycleForUs also offers pre-paid shipping labels and a database of drop-off locations.


• Walmart lets you print a free shipping label from their web site, promising profits go to the United Way.


• Best Buy has a kiosk inside the door of every store for phones, (as well as batteries, and ink-jet cartridges.)


• Cell For Cash also runs a cellphone-purchasing program.


• Wireless Fundraiser offers 18 categories of charities to benefit from your donation — from "Health and Wellness" to "Disaster Relief." Cellphones can also be donated through Charitable Recycling.com


• Second Rotation offers a handy pricing guide for recycling phones. If you mail them your cellphone (or laptop, camera, mp3 player, or gaming console) they'll mail back your payment! (And another site called Trade My Cell offers something similar.)

If you're terminating your contract early, don't forget that you can also sell your contract to another buyer at sites like CellSwapper, CellTradeUSA, and ReSellular.

It's hard to preserve a phone's re-sale value, since they all become obsolete so quickly. (That's the reason there's so many old phones to recycle!) That changed a little this summer, since the iPhones will always retain some re-sale value — but that will probably hurt the re-sale value of other phones even more.

If you're worried about retaining a phone's resale value, the first rule is probably "Don't scratch it." But that will cast a cloud of worry over the entire life of the phone — and it probably won't make much difference. If your phone has a customizable cover, you could try swapping in something especially unique, and then charging a premium for it on eBay.

In 2005, the CEO of RecycleForUs estimated there were 500 million used cellphones in America, and predicted another 130 million used cell phones by 2006. There's lots of options for recycling a cellphone. The hard part is getting people to use them!