Thursday 20 December 2007

Norfolk Wildlife Trust  has partnered up with Recycling Appeal with a recycling campaign for unwanted mobile phones, inkjet and toner cartridges. All money raised will continue to support the valuable work of NWT.

The scheme couldn’t be simpler. Just put your unwanted mobile phone into the freepost envelope and pop it in the post. The envelopes are available in all the visitor centres, through our website or by calling freephone 08451 302010. NWT also have display boxes of the envelopes to be placed in public areas in workplaces or at points of sale for customers or fellow workmates to use if they wish. For a full list of recyclable items please go to www.recyclingappeal.com if you have more then 15 recyclable items Recycling Appeal are more than happy to arrange a free collection, please call 08451 302010.

It is estimated today that there is somewhere in the region of 60 million to 90 million unwanted handsets languishing in drawers and offices in the UK. With millions more new handsets being pumped into an already saturated market place each year at greatly subsidised prices, this mountain just continues to grow. More than 1.1 billion inkjet cartridges are used annually around the world - laid end to end this would be 129 times as long as the Great Wall of China. Each discarded empty laser printer cartridge adds approximately three pounds of waste to our landfills. More than 30 million inkjet cartridges are dumped each year in the UK (1800 tonnes) - the same weight as 18 Blue Whales
Mobile technology has revolutionised communications in many developing countries, where access to landline communication systems is extremely limited. However, the cost of a brand new handset is prohibitive to most of the population. Old and unwanted handsets from the UK can provide an affordable solution to this problem all over the developing world. Industry analysts estimate a spent cartridge can be reused or remanufactured between 3 to 7 times - every cartridge remanufactured is one fewer going directly to the landfill. 20-30% of all cartridges sold worldwide are remanufactured.

Recycling Appeal guarantees that even items that cannot be reused or resold will not end up in landfill. Mobile phones and their batteries contain elements such as mercury, cadmium, nickel and gallium arsenide which if not disposed of carefully, can be extremely harmful to the environment. Anything that cannot be reused or refurbished is recycled either to extract reusable elements such as copper or to be used as the raw material for anything from road sleepers to Frisbees.

Fundraising manager Alan Chapman commented: “This is a ‘win-win’ situation for NWT. An opportunity for us to raise much needed funds, with the added bonus of action for the environment through active recycling. I am looking for a positive response to this ongoing initiative from our members and others.”

Click here to print a FREEPOST address label or to request a freepost envelope.