Envirofone, the mobile phone recycling company, is giving young entrepreneurs in Sierra Leone a helping hand by donating 300 unwanted handsets. The mobiles were sent to West African company Splash Mobile Money, which helps provide training and jobs for young Africans. The scheme, known as Splash for Cash, allows people in Sierra Leone to transfer money between themselves by their handsets. But now for the first time, the Manchester-based Envirofone company is lending a hand to the project and plans to support other initiatives in Africa over the next year. Head of marketing at Envirofone, Julia Snape, said they got involved with ... Full Story

Marks & Spencer has partnered with ShP Limited to offer a new programme aimed at helping UK householders recycling unwanted electrical items. Joining together with ShP Limited recycling firm, the popular UK retailer will offer gift vouchers to anyone that recycles an item via their new website programme. The website will seek to reduce the millions of tonnes of e-waste mounting in the UK every year. According to Dave Hughes, director for M&S Direct, existing technology advances so quickly, that items are becoming redundant faster and faster as people upgrade to new electronics. He added that by recycling these unwanted or outdated ... Full Story

Samsung India Electronics has begun a new recycling scheme in an effort to generate awareness and educate its customers on the value of diverting e-waste from landfill. In a nationwide programme roll-out, Samsung's new Samsung Takeback and Recycle (STAR) Program will see a disposal sites set up at each of Samsung's 235 locations across 20 cities in India. The move comes as Samsung begins to push for India to move towards more sustainable practices on e-waste and begin to mount an attack on the growing electronic waste issue building up in landfills across the developing nation. J.S. Shin, President and CEO for ... Full Story

Cerebra Integrated Technologies, one of India’s premier total IT Solutions retailers, announced a new partnership with Cimelia Resource Recovery Pte Ltd, India’s biggest e-waste recycling firm. The alliance will allow Cerebra Integrated to begin work on its proposed e-waste recycling facility, set to be constructed near Bangalore. Located on 10 acres of land in the region, the new electronic waste recycling unit will be set-up entirely by Cimelia including machinery. The recycling firm will also aid Cerebra in the managing of the new facility. Appropriately dubbed the E-waste plant, the new recycling unit will allow Cerebra Integrated to double its e-waste recycling ... Full Story

Major UK mobile service provider, O2, has launched the first ever sustainable rating system for mobile handsets. In the wake of survey results indicating that 44 per cent of the mobile giant’s customers would be influenced by environmental factors when deciding on a mobile phone, O2 has designed a new scheme that will allow it to rate mobile handsets produced by various firms. The newly founded Eco Rating will score phones out of 5, and currently the Sony Ericsson Elm has received top marks with 4.3. The scores will be published both online and in the service provider’s retail outlets. Eco Rating was designed ... Full Story

UK Corporations are starting to realise the environmental and monetary benefits of recycling old company mobile phones. It has been estimated that over 3 million firms in the UK will give out company or company-paid mobiles as part of upgrades or new handouts this year. With the large excess of redundant phones in the corporate sector, businesses are beginning to appreciate the value of recycling phones that employees exchange for new ones. Actions being taken by these firms include setting up recycling drives in building lobbies or forming partnerships with online recyclers. Not only do corporations receive environmental accolades for responsibly recycling, ... Full Story

Mobile service provider O2 launched the UK’s first environmental phone rating scheme today. The service will examine the carbon footprint of each device over the course of their lifespan. Joined by sustainability organisation ‘Forum for the Future’, O2 has created a list of at least 65 mobile handsets from six different manufacturers. Each device has been rated based on its overall level of environmental impact. This includes its entire lifespan from collection of raw materials to how easy it is to recycle at the end of its life. The scheme will also include the functionality of the mobile phone with devices that ... Full Story

A new start-up is offering cash for people’s unwanted phones as a means of encouraging mobile handset recycling across the country. The first mobile phone recycling company to open in Australia, Mazuma Mobile proposes to spend over $5 million to recover the estimated 16 million unused phones scattered around the nation. The company is offering phone users $1.60 for phones that are no longer in working order all the way up to $650 for a fully loaded, working iPhone. The firm, established in Britain four years ago, has already paid out over $118 million in cash for pre-loved mobiles in ... Full Story

Washington-based Coinstar, which runs automated coin-counting kiosks and movie rental stands, announced it will purchase the rights to ecoATM, a San Diego-invented automated mobile phone recycling kiosk. EcoATM, which was first introduced in 2008, is currently being piloted in seven different locations around the US. The kiosks automatically calculate the price of a mobile device once placed into and dole out cash to each customer based on the calculations. Payments are available in the form of gift cards, vouchers or cash. Each mobile device once collected is stored until each kiosk can be emptied. Once emptied, the used mobiles are taken to ... Full Story

Two major companies in the UAE will look to recycling hundreds of used BlackBerrys after the announcement that the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) will ban the service. The ban, which is set to go into effect on 11 October, will block all residents and foreign visitors from using BlackBerry services. Two firms, who have remained anonymous, have reportedly contacted the Green Foundation - a mobile phone recycling organisation - to arrange a plan for handing in the smartphones. According to the Green Foundation's marketing manager, Jonathan Tozer, the two firms had made inquires as to BlackBerry recycling of all its employees phones ... Full Story

The UK government has announced it will begin more rigorous inspections of recycled mobile phones in an effort to clamp down on the illegal recycling of stolen mobile handset units. A new charter, which was agreed upon by the mobile phone recycling industry and the government, will be put in place to help curb the illegal sale of stolen mobiles. Nearly 100,000 stolen UK mobile phones are recycled and sold each year, in an illegal racket that has become worth more than £4 million. Since stolen mobile phones have been banned from UK networks, the government has traced the problem back ... Full Story

Sainsbury's has taken further steps to improve its carbon footprint with the latest launch of its new mobile handset battery charger recycling programme. Part of Sainsbury's Make the Difference Days, the initiative is the first campaign of its type for the UK grocer and will see the supermarket implement charger recycling stations across all its stores beginning now through 28 August. Hoping to collect more than 150,000 chargers throughout the campaign, the retailer will use the banks in its properties nationwide. It has been estimated that more than 20 million old chargers are sitting forgotten in drawers in UK households. Over one ... Full Story