| Tired of your old phone? Ready to toss it and get a | | | | market has sprung up for recycling mobile phones. |
| new one? Have you ever considered recycling it? | | | | This market works in a rather unfamiliar way. Instead |
| Recycling your old phones helps to protect the | | | | of the customer paying for goods and services, as in |
| environment by reusing materials and saving energy. | | | | most industries, the burgeoning mobile phone recycling |
| Most of the materials that mobile phones are made of, | | | | industry is built around the concept that the customer is |
| such as plastics, copper, and other metals can be | | | | paid by the recycler. That's right, phones for cash! |
| reused and turned into new products. This saves | | | | Phone recycling companies will pay you for the right to |
| material and cuts down on waste. | | | | properly dispose of harmful chemicals in your cell |
| Before you simply throw your old mobile phone in the | | | | phone and re-use the plastics and other materials in |
| rubbish bin, consider this:phones and other wireless | | | | future products. Other companies will sell old mobile |
| electronic devices contain an astonishing number of | | | | phones online, or even open up stores in poorer |
| harmful elements, such as lead, beryllium, arsenic, | | | | countries offering old mobile phones at a discount rate. |
| mercury, antimony, and cadmium. These toxic | | | | In either case, you can be sure that you are |
| substances can cause any number of diseases and | | | | contributing to the health of the environment and those |
| conditions, all of them serious or even fatal. These | | | | around you. |
| include cancer of the lungs, liver, and kidneys, seizures, | | | | It is easy to say that one cares about the environment; |
| retardation, high blood pressure, and damage to the | | | | such proclamations have become fashionable in |
| central nervous system, digestive tract, and mouth | | | | today's society. However, research shows that only a |
| (including teeth and gums). You can develop a variety | | | | very small percentage of people actually recycle |
| of conditions due to repeated or extreme exposure of | | | | regularly, and even fewer think to recycle things like |
| these toxic substances, which can even lead to death. | | | | mobile phones, digital cameras, or PDAs. These items |
| These extremely harmful substances can make their | | | | are most often taken out with the rest of the rubbish, |
| way into the water supply of cities and communities, | | | | to be placed in a landfill or dumped into the |
| they can contaminate the soil used for growing crops, | | | | environment. As such devices are broken or damaged |
| and they can also poison entire animal populations. | | | | in the process of being moved, they often leak out |
| The above information is not meant to be a macabre | | | | dangerous elements into the rubbish, soil, or foliage |
| scare tactic; rather, it represents the very real risks we | | | | around them. So before you add your mobile phone to |
| saturate our environment with every day through the | | | | the growing rubbish heap, consider the consequences |
| improper disposal of mobile phones and other | | | | of your action. Help the environment, recycle your |
| electronic devices. Thankfully, there is a solution. A | | | | phone. |