Monday, 6 September 2010

Rose Read, the Manager of MobileMuster, explains the differences between the mobile telecommunication industry’s official not-for-profit recycling scheme and a number of for-profit refurbishment programs that have entered the market.

Over the past 12 months a number of new mobile phone recycling programs have come into the Australian market. While presented as recycling programs they are in fact second-hand dealers who refurbish and resell mobile phone handsets overseas for profit. They should not be confused with MobileMuster, which is a not-for-profit producer responsibility, take-back program that aims to keep mobiles and all their associated components out of landfill and recycled to the highest environmental standards.

So how do they work and who benefits? 

In the case of Youcan.org.au (i.e. Sony Foundation raising funds for youth cancer) and Gorillas (Zoos across Australia raising funds for Jane Goodall Foundation) these programs use cause related marketing activities to collect second hand mobiles for resale into developing countries.

Youcan is a campaign driven by Sony Foundation in partnership with the Irish refurbishment company Folamh. All phones sent in to Youcan are sorted locally in Sydney, those handsets (and batteries if attached) that can be resold are shipped back to Ireland or to Hong Kong where they are refurbished, repackaged and sold into developing countries in Africa and Asia. Currently, there is no effort by the reseller to encourage the new owner to recycle their old mobile phone at the end of its useful life.

In terms of profits, Sony Foundation reportedly receives 50% of the profit from the resale of the phones the rest goes to Folamh.

The Save the Gorilla’s campaign is driven by all the Zoos across Australia in partnership with Aussie Recycling Program (ARP). ARP, like Folamh, sorts the mobiles received and ships them to second-hand dealers in Hong Kong, where they are sold on to other markets. Like Folamh there is no effort by the reseller to encourage the purchaser to recycle their old mobile phone at the end of its useful life.

Unlike the Youcan campaign, ARP only pays the nominated charity $2 per handset. The remaining profit goes to ARP. ARP works with many other charities across Australia including SCOPE and Clean Up Australia.

Programs such as Mazuma’s and Money4Mobiles are a pure commercial transaction with the mobile phone user. Their websites clearly advise how much they will pay an individual for their old mobile. This varies based on model, age and condition. Once again the mobiles are refurbished and shipped offshore for resale, predominately to developing countries in Asia and Africa. Like the other commercial refurbishers there is no apparent attempt to encourage the new owner of this phone to recycle it at the end of its useful life, nor is there any attempt to set up a take-back program in the country where the product is resold.

All of the above programs prefer to only receive the handset and discourage people to send in accessories or batteries. However, they do receive these. To ensure that none of these mobile components end up in landfill MobileMuster has agreed with each organisation to recycle their scrap for free.

None of these organisations report publicly on the amount and weight of handsets/batteries exported for resale or provide any details on what countries they are sold into or the refurbishment and resale procedures. Nor do they contribute to MobileMuster or take back programs in the countries where they resell the mobiles.

There are a suite of guidelines established by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) for mobile phone recycling and refurbishment. It is unclear if any of these programs comply with these guidelines. http://www.basel.int/industry/mppi/documents.html 

Recycling versus reuse, is there a difference?

Yes. Recycling* occurs when the materials from the products collected are broken down into raw materials and reprocessed either into the same product (closed loop) or a new product (open loop). The term covers a wide range of activities required to turn used materials into new products. These activities include collection, sorting, reprocessing and manufacture. There are many materials that are capable of being recycled, and technology is advancing to allow the recycling of more materials.

Whereas reuse is defined* as recovering value from a discarded item without reprocessing or remanufacture. Typically this will involve an item being reused in its original function. Importantly, the definition of reuse does not preclude relatively minor pre-treatments like washing, reconditioning or painting.

Reuse is given priority over recycling within the Waste Hierarchy because it is assumed to provide greater savings in resource consumption. In other words, reusing an item for its original purpose generally consumes fewer resources than sending the item back to a manufacturer to be converted into the raw materials for the manufacture of a new version of the same item.

However, the benefits of recycling do not lie solely in diversion of waste away from disposal but, more importantly, in the reduction of the amount of virgin resources that need to be harvested and processed for the manufacture of new products.

Investigations by Energetics on behalf of the AMTA show that by recycling the materials in mobile phones up to 10 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions are avoided for every tonne of mobile phone materials recovered.

*http://www.wastenet.net.au/information/hierarchy/reuse

The pluses and minuses of reselling mobiles into developing countries

On the positive side there are a number of case studies that show how providing affordable second hand mobiles to people in developing counties can dramatically improve their standard of living. Plus the life of the mobile phone is extended.

However, on the negative side, many of these countries do not have safe landfill sites or appropriately set up recycling facilities. This results in mobile not being disposed of or recycled in a safe way and putting humans and the environment at risk from potentially hazardous materials leaching into water ways and/or harmful gases released into the atmosphere from incorrect burning of plastics and metals.

Investigations conducted by Hyder Consulting on behalf of the AMTA into the relative environmental costs and benefits of reuse versus recycling, using Life Cycle Assessment techniques and industry specific scenarios shows that the recycling of phones (as conducted by MobileMuster) has an almost 60% lower environmental impact than the overseas refurbishment option where it is assumed the mobile phone will end up in landfill in a developing country. (Australian Mobile Telecommunication Association, End-of-Life Management Options for Mobile Telephones, Environmental, Social & Risk Assessment Final Report, Tuesday, 9 May 2006, Report no: NS03208, Hyder Consulting Pty Ltd)