UPI Technology News - December 3 2004

Old mobile phones a hazard

By Gene J. Koprowski

CHICAGO, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A mobile phone is a disposable product -- consumers buy a new one about every year and a half, and toss the old one in the closet. Then, years later, when they have a major house-cleaning weekend, they find a few old phones collecting dust and toss them out in the trash.

Experts told UPI's Wireless World this pattern is starting to become a major environmental issue, as old mobile phones start to fill up garbage dumps across the United States and leach lead, arsenic, gold and other toxins into the groundwater.

"There are a lot of heavy metals being released into landfills because of old mobile phones," said Chuck Harrell, an environmental supervisor with the Southeastern Public Service Authority, a government agency in Chesapeake, Va.

Now, mobile phone manufacturers such as Motorola Corp. are collaborating with environmentalists and the government to solve this emerging problem. Municipalities are joining to create mobile-phone recycling centers for their residents.

Technology companies are developing mobile-phone casings out of biodegradable materials -- even plant seeds, which sprout flowers after they break down in the ground after disposal. Other entrepreneurial firms are beginning to see this as a potentially major new business. They are setting up operations to collect America's old mobile phones, refit them and sell them in Latin America and South America, or donate them to American forces serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, so they can call loved ones for free or a reduced fee.

Brian Brundage, chief executive officer of Intercon Solutions, a recycler located in Chicago, said about 80 percent of the circuit boards in mobile phones are lead-based. The phones recycled at his plant yield lead, steel, gold, copper and plastic, which then are used in other electronic products.

"This helps reduce the amount of mining that has to be done for future materials," said Brundage, whose company has been awarded about $300,000 in grant monies from the state of Illinois to study future recycling processes.

Other businesses are emerging around the idea of recycling old mobile phones, said Tony Romando, editor-in-chief of Sync magazine, a cutting-edge, hip consumer electronics journal in New York City.

"Ring tones and games are options on mobile phones today that are really popular," said Romando, formerly an editor at Rolling Stone magazine. "But the options are going far beyond that now. There are biodegradable casings for mobile phones, made out of sunflower seeds. Once they are thrown out and they break down, they sprout flowers. There may be a whole portion of the population that wants these."

Romando said his magazine is calling the devices "green phones." He also said smaller entrepreneurs are setting up kiosks in shopping malls, offering customers payment in exchange for old mobile phones. They then resell the phones or recycle them.

Ultimately, this trend is about environmental stewardship being exercised by companies -- as well as the government, Harrell said. "This is becoming a national trend."

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