O2 Celebrates Mobile Phone Recycling Milestone
Wednesday, October 30, 2019 - 11:56:02
For network provider O2 the number of old handsets recycled via its own collection scheme has surpassed three million over the course of the last decade, according to Tech Radar.
Following its launch in 2009, the O2 Recycle initiative got off to a flying start and has continued to be a popular option for customers looking to trade in unwanted old handsets when they upgrade.
Over £226 million has been paid back to customers who took advantage of the scheme over this period, and perhaps unsurprisingly there has been quite a change in terms of the types of devices which are most commonly recycled.
Back at its inception, Nokia was one of the world’s top mobile manufacturers, with an old N95 from the Finnish brand being O2’s first ever device to be collected for recycling. Snap forward to 2019 and a lot has changed, with Apple’s iPhone range now making up more than two-thirds of all the old phones that are sold for recycling.
The good news from the point of view of sustainability is that more than nine in tem of the old handsets which are picked up for processing do not need to be broken down for parts but can instead be refurbished and sold on to customers elsewhere in the UK or overseas.
In total this has meant that more than 450 tonnes of old electronics have been prevented from going to landfill just as part of this recycling scheme over ten years, with other services operating throughout country helping to raise the industry total even higher.
In spite of this good news, experts warn that there are still 40 million old phones gathering dust in households across the UK, and so there is still a need to encourage people to recycle unwanted devices.
Latest News
Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - 10:32:41
Every industry around the world has been impacted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and recycling has been especially affected as a result of force [...]
Read More
Wednesday, May 6, 2020 - 21:33:36
Apple has pulled back the curtains on the all-new iPhone SE, bringing with it a raft of eco-friendly design features which aim to improve the green cr [...]
Read More
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 - 21:32:00
Researchers from New Zealand have demonstrated a new recycling solution which could help companies to reclaim rare materials from smartphones, PCs and [...]
Read More