There are many ways in which recycling mobile phones helps the environment. The very rapid advancement of technology has made for literally hundreds of millions of used mobile phones lying around in drawers around the United Kingdom. This has led to a massive amount of electronic waste being dumped into landfills which causes a variety of problems. Not only to phones take up precious space in landfills but mobile phone batteries can often leak harmful chemicals into the landfills which eventually finds its way into water supplies. Mobile phone makers have been on a campaign to raise recycling rates around the United Kingdom in a variety of ways. One of the best and most effective ways is to offer people incentive to recycle in the form of cash or in the form of a donation to charity.
Charitable donations have been an effective way to get people to recycle mobile phones. Most people like to do something good for the world and will not feel they are simply giving away their phone if the proceeds go to a good cause. Recently the Bristol Zoo launched a scheme in which customers can help save gorillas by recycling their mobile phones. Many mobile phones have a chemical called coltan, which is a mineral that comes from the Congo Basin of Central Africa. This area is also home to the lowland gorilla, which is a critically endangered species. When mining is done for this mineral a lot of trees have to be cut down, which leads to less habitat for the gorillas. By recycling phones the Zoo hopes to limit the amount of coltan necessary.
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