Cellphone Recycling

A cell phone is made up of many materials. In general, the handset consists of 40 percentmetals, 40 percent plastics, and 20 percentceramics and trace materials.

Mobile phones are relatively inexpensive, and smaller every day. However, it is plastic it takes thousands of years to degrade, and toxic metals such as arsenic, antimony, Beryllium, cadmium,

copper, lead, nickel and zinc, that accumulate in living organisms and can cause cancer and neurological diseases.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 130 million cell phones are discarded each year. When dismantled, their internal metal components translate into 65,000 tons of waste containing lead, cadmium, arsenic, beryllium, mercury and other toxic heavy metals and carcinogens.

The facts are that 280 tonnes of mobile phones, batteries and accessories have been collected for recycling by the industry, saving the environment from potential damage. This equates to 1.1 million batteries and 435,000 handsets having been collected.