National mobile phone recycling campaign launched
Howard Lake | 25 September 2002 | News
Charities raising funds from donated old mobile phones now face a major new player in the market.
Fonebak is a new government-backed campaign to collect and recycle mobile phones. It is the first mobile phone recycling scheme to have the backing of all the network service providers and four major retail chains.
It also claims to be the first to comply with current legislation, and the forthcoming Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, which comes into force in 2003, which sets guidelines and targets for the recycling of potentially harmful electrical waste.
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The progamme is commercial so would appear to be a competitor to those mobile phone recycling campaigns set up by charities such as Oxfam’s Bring Bring initiative. However, Fonebak says that its marketing team is willing to work with charities and environmental organisations as well as companies to develop joint take-back or trade-in schemes.
Some of the mobile operators have been running charity recycling schemes already. Virgin Mobile donates £5 to the Red Cross for every one of its mobile phones that is recycled, and Vodafone expects to donate £100,000 to Flora and Fauna International by the end of 2002. Having launched its scheme in April 2002 it reports that already 700 phones a week are being recycled.
Read “Mobile mountain sparks recycling bid” at the BBC.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.