What Happens to Recycled Mobile Phones

So you’ve signed up to a mobile phone recycling company and you’re all ready to send your old mobile in for recycling but you want to know one more thing... what will happen to your mobile phone when it is recycled? Your mobile phone will be either be refurbished or recycled...

Mobile Phones may be Refurbished

A phone is generally refurbished if it is in complete working condition already. By refurbishing this means that if the casing is scratched or the screen cracked, it will be replaced. Performance tests will also be performed on the phone to check that the components inside are working properly.

Once the phone has been refurbished it is then sold on. The first group of people that buy refurbished mobile phones are charities:

Give Old Phones to Charities

 Charities buy refurbished mobile phones and donate them (sometimes for a very small fee) to organisations in developing countries such as Delhi, Ethiopia and Malawi. These organisations then either give the refurbished mobiles away for free or sell them on for a small price. As the mobile phone coverage in developing countries grows, so does the business of refurbished mobile phones.

Charities in the UK also make use of refurbished mobile phones. The charity ‘phones for safety’ turns old mobiles into reconditioned ‘999 only’ phones. These ‘999 only’ phones work as personal alarms which enabled victims of stalking or domestic abuse to reach the police on a direct line by pressing any button on the phone.

There are some charities that accept old mobiles but do not offer cash in return. Many charities are given old mobiles which they then sell on to be stripped of the useful components such as gold, platinum, silver and copper which are then sold to make money for the charity. A typical mobile phone can make around £5 for charity.

Mobile Phone Networks Recycle Old Mobile Phones

Some mobile phone networks buy reconditioned mobile phones and sell them on to customers who are after a fully functioning phone for a lesser price than a new handset would cost. These reconditioned phones are often phones that have suffered ‘cosmetic’ damage such as a cracked screen. Whilst the original customer gets a new phone, the old phone gets its screen replaced and is sold onto a new customer for a discounted price.

Scrapping Old Phones for Recycling

There’s money in scrap elements and many mobile phone recycling companies take advantage of this. Mobile phones contain many precious elements and compounds, Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium, Titanium and Copper to name but a few. All these metals can me melted down and used again in new mobile phones and other electronic gadgets such as Ipods and digital cameras. There is an average of 0.2gms of gold in each mobile phone, if you total how much gold there would be in 1000 mobile phones that actually equals quite a profitable amount of gold.