Recycle Your Cell Phone

What are the benefits of recycling cell phones?

There are several reasons that recycling cell phones is better for the environment. Recycling cell phones conserves natural resources and reduces the huge environmental impacts from resource extraction. Recycling cell phones also prevents toxic substances from polluting the soil, water and air when they’re sent to landfills or incinerators. And recycling reduces the amount of waste that towns and cities have to handle.

Extending the life of the phone through reuse is the best thing we can do, so mail it in, take it back, donate it, or sell it online!

Mail it in

If you are ready to recycle your phone and want to mail it directly to a recycling facility,
follow these simple, hassle-free steps:

1. Download free - pre-paid mailing label.
2. Print out the pre-paid mailing label and cut it out along the dotted line.
3. Place your cell phone, charger and accessories in the envelope and affix the label on the envelope. You can also include pagers and PDAs.
4. Drop it off at the post office or in a mailbox. Postage is already paid, so shipping is free!

For cell phone recycling, INFORM partners with Collective Good.

Take It Back

Below is a list of national stores that have cell phone take-back programs. Stores will take back all cell phones – no matter where they were purchased. Some stores are not listed because they have store-by-store recycling policies as opposed to company-wide policies.

Alltel		Sam’s Club
AT&T Wireless		Sprint Wireless
Best Buy		Staples
The Body Shop		T-Mobile
Circuit City		Target
Costco		US Cellular
FedEx Kinko's		Verizon Wireless
Office Depot		Virgin Mobile
OfficeMax		Wal-Mart
Radio Shack

Sell It

Cell phones have value. Make some money for yourself! Here are some websites where you can sell your cell phone online.

http://www.greenphone.com

http://www.recellulartradein.com

Donate It or Hold a Fundraiser

Here are some organizations that will donate the proceeds from cell phone recycling to charities of your choice, or help you carry out a fundraiser for your school or community group.

http://www.collectivegood.com

http://www.grcrecycling.com

To Recyclers:

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control conducted an analysis using EPA test methods, and determined that cell phones can be classified as hazardous waste. INFORM urges all recyclers to follow the United Nation’s Mobile Phone Partnership Initiative Decision Tree Procedure – a guidance document on the international movement of hazardous waste under the Basel Convention. You can find the Decision Tree in Appendix 4(b) of the Guidance Document here.

We also encourage you to take the Electronics Recycler’s Pledge of True Stewardship.