Cricket Introduces National Phone Recycling Program
Did you know that Americans discard approximately 130 million cell phones? Less than five percent of discarded cell phones are recycled, totaling about 65,000 tons of waste annually. On this Earth Day 2009, Cricket is proud to announce a nation-wide cell phone recycling program.
Customers can drop off their unused cell phones, from ANY provider, at participating Cricket stores or print a postage-paid shipping label from Cricket’s website (www.mycricket.com/green) and send their phones to the recycling center.
Since a typical phone contains materials like arsenic, zinc and lead, throwing out old cell phones is not only wasteful, it’s dangerous. If disposed of in landfills, these materials can seep into groundwater. If incinerated, the same chemicals end up in the air we breathe.
A portion of the proceeds from the program will be donated to Rebuilding Together. Cricket is partnering with Rebuilding Together, the nation’s leading nonprofit working to preserve affordable homeownership and revitalize communities. The focus of the partnership will be to address issues of safety and homeownership among the elderly, the disabled, families with children, and those impacted by the rising cost of living and falling social service budgets.
Cricket’s recycling program will be facilitated in conjunction with ReCellular Inc. Approximately 50 percent of the cell phones collected by ReCellular are refurbished to near-new condition or otherwise processed for resale. Rebuilt phones are packaged and marketed to users in developing nations of the world where new phones are cost-prohibitive. Products that cannot be rebuilt are disassembled and responsibly recycled. No environmental waste goes to landfills, either directly or through intermediaries, making the process highly effective in reducing or eliminating solid waste. Additional information about ReCellular and its programs can be found at www.recellular.com or www.wirelessrecycling.com.
Happy Earth Day 2009!!
