Don't Throw Away Your Old Cell Phone

Amid the usual pile of pre-approved credit card offers, student loan consolidation letters, advertisements and assorted bills I always shuffle through when I check the mail, I found something extraordinary last week: a thick white plastic envelope, self-addressed, with a picture in red and blue ink of a soldier on a walkie-talkie. "Cell Phones for Soldiers," the caption reads—both the name of the organization and its basic concept. Text on the surface explains what you're asked to do, which is simple enough: Find your old cell phone, turn it off, place it in the envelope, and put it in the mail. Postage is provided.

I wasn't as surprised as I would have been if I'd received this envelope a week earlier. But just a few days before, on my drive to work, I had heard a radio program about cell phone recycling. Elizabeth Shogren of National Public Radio delivered a short report on "All Things Considered" addressing the issue. Her report was seemingly inspired by the Environmental Protection Agency's new cell phone recycling promotion. There are, according to the EPA, approximately 100 million broken or obsolete cell phones currently taking up space in the U.S., and nearly 200,000 homes could be powered for a year with the energy saved by recycling them. As a nation, we currently only recycle around one fifth of our old cell phones; a shame, considering that cell phones, made up largely of plastic and metals like gold, lithium, and copper, are 100% recyclable.

Depending on their make, model, and condition, recycling a phone can garner between two and 150 dollars. A number of cell-phone-recycling companies have popped up in the U.S. recently, taking advantage of this new niche in the market. One executive, Mike Newman of ReCellular, reported to Shogren that his company recycled four million phones last year. Of those, 60% were either still operable, or reparable enough that they could be sold or donated to new users. The rest were completely recycled for their materials.

Which brings me back to Cell Phones for Soldiers. I first assumed, from the name of the organization, that they passed old phones directly on to servicemen and women abroad. However, that's not exactly how it works: instead, Cell Phones for Soldiers recycles donated phones for cash, and uses that cash to buy phone cards for U.S. military personnel.

The organization was founded in early 2004 by Brittany and Robbie Bergquist, Boston-area teens who were inspired to help when they saw a story on the news about a U.S. soldier stationed in Iraq who had an 8,000 dollar cell-phone bill from calling home. The kids were shocked to learn that troops have to fund their own phone calls, and started raising money to pay the large bill. In the process they learned what kind of money old cell phones can fetch, and started asking for donations of the newly obsolete machinery.

I plan to dig out my old, slightly broken RAZR and send it in. I could probably recycle it myself for a small profit, but truth be told, I'd probably never get around to it on my own (like a lot of people, I expect). Cell Phones for Soldiers is an organization that lets you combine the Green satisfaction of recycling with the nonpartisan Red, White, and Blue feeling of helping troops talk to their loved ones.

If you don't want to recycle the phone yourself, take note: most electronics stores have drop-off boxes, and many companies will give the scrap metal profits to charity. And regardless of which route you take, remember that cell phones can be completely recycled; and that they'll do the Earth a lot more good in the hands of a new user than in the bottom of your desk drawer.