Recycle Your Cell Phone To Save A Gorilla

There are many good reasons to recycle old cellphones, but one of the best is to save the Eastern Lowland Mountain Gorilla in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

How is it that what you do with a cell phone affects gorillas in Africa? It has to do with our fragile and tightly coupled ecosystem. Here’s what happens. Cellphones are constructed from various electronic components. One of these is a tantalum capacitor. Tantalum is a rare and valuable metal that enables once physically large capacitors to be made small enough to squeeze into those slim cell phone cases. You get tantalum from columbite tantalite, a metallic ore called Coltan for short. Eighty percent of the world’s Coltan reserves are found in Africa, with the majority of the deposits located within the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ah, you are starting to see the connection. Here’s how the gorillas get involved. It’s illegal to mine for Coltan in the Congo, but with the material going for as much as $400 a kilogram, such mining continues on a large scale. Forests are cleared to make way for the mining and paved roads are installed. The gorillas become exposed and easy targets for bush meat hunters who sell the meat to feed miners and rebel armies in control of the area. More than half of the mountain gorilla population has been lost in just the last five years. It’s also thought that an entire population of elephants has also been wiped out in this activity.

So what we have is a situation where demand for a rare mineral has mushroomed to support the hundreds of millions of cell phones manufactured for use worldwide. High prices for Coltan have promoted the destruction of wild habitat and the killing of endangered gorillas and elephants who once enjoyed a protected environment. Is this just the price we have to pay for technology or can something be done?

Something is being done. The Jane Goodall Institute and Melbourne Zoo in Australia have joined forces to create a mobile phone recycling program called “They’re Calling on You.”You can visit the zoo to collect a postage paid recycling satchel or download and print a postage paid label to send your phone in. They’ve even got a program for corporations to donate fleets of old mobile phones. If your school would like to help, you can integrate the program into your curriculum.

They’re indeed calling on you and, if you live in Australia, you have the unique honor of being able to answer this call. But what about the rest of the world? Is there anything we can do?

Absolutely, there is. In the United States, Gazelle offers a cell phone and electronic gadgets recycling program that also includes a free mailer. This one goes beyond mobile phones to include electronic games, computers and even photography gear. They will even pay you for recent vintage equipment in good working order.

Elsewhere around the world, look for local or large scale recycling programs. But whatever you do, don’t toss that cell phone in the trash. That only compounds the problem. In addition to the damage done by creating the product in the first place, electronic components degrade in the environment and leach out toxic chemicals that can pollute the soil and water table.

The recycling programs offer a double benefit. They not only prevent damage from decaying products, they also reduce the need for mining and manufacturing by refurbishing the old phones for use in disadvantaged communities. Devices too old or not functional can be ground up by reclaimers to recycle the minerals to make new phones.

Listen! They’re really calling you... and it’s a very important call!

Note: Photo of gorilla courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Don’t Be Part Of The Impending Worldwide E-Waste Crisis

Most of have heard by now that it’s not a good idea to just throw your old electronic devices in the trash. The awareness of hazardous e-waste has gotten to the point where some office supply and electronics or hardware stores have a big box where you can drop off your unwanted cell phones, old laptop batteries or compact fluorescent light bulbs. Communities have places where you can take your old computer or special recycling days a couple of times a year just for electronics. Savvy businesses and consumers also know that you can sell your unwanted electronics for cash rather than giving it the old heave-ho. So, why is the United Nations warning of a coming crises in e-waste?

This impending threat is coming countries that are now in a rapid development period as well as established patterns in the U.S. and other developed countries. China, India, Africa and Latin America are expected to be dumping large quantities of e-waste in the next 10 years. Why? Primarily because these countries are also becoming big consumers of electronic gadgets. E-waste just from discarded mobile phones will be 7x higher in 2020 than it was in 2007 in China. In India it will be much worse at 18x higher. There are similar large increases predicted for e-waste from old computers and televisions.

Much of this increase in e-waste volume will surely come from the modernization of these now developing countries. But some of it also comes from the industrialized world dumping their electronic trash in other countries. Nigeria, in particular, has long been an international landfill for electronic waste from the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea, among other countries.

So, what’s the big deal with dumping e-waste as long as it isn’t in your back yard? First of all, it’s just not right to be victimizing these poverty stricken people who don’t even realize the toxicity of the materials they’re handling. Your cell phone or computer isn’t going to disintegrate in your home and poison you. But when these devices are smashed apart and cooked to try and recover valuable elements like gold and silver or left to decay in a trash heap, they release toxic chemicals that can ruin your health.

Do you really think that the global ecosphere keeps the bad chemicals over there and completely away from our air and water? Think again. The atmosphere doesn’t observe any national boundaries. It goes around and around the Earth, collecting dust and vapors from one country and blowing them into or raining them down upon other countries. The oceans work the same way. Dump it in the water way over there and you’ll eventually find it washing up on your shores too.

I think it’s good that an international body like the United Nations is sounding the alarm about the growing e-waste problem. We’re long past the day when we can turn a blind eye to pollution no matter where it occurs. This will almost certainly require an international effort to tackle the problem, especially in areas where there is so little awareness of the danger and few resources to properly recycle these materials. Companies like Apple have taken the initiative of offering a free recycling service for your old computer when you buy one of their new ones. That would be a good approach for all manufacturers.

In the meantime, we can all do our parts by ensuring that we turn our old unwanted electronic equipment over to companies that have the capacity to properly dismantle and process the cases and electronic circuit boards. Plus, don’t forget that many electronic gadgets can be easily sold for cash so that they’ll get a new lease on life and you’ll get money you can use for your next high tech acquisition.

There’s $$$ In E-Waste

Did you know there’s a $100 bill in that trash you set out at the curb? Oh, I’m sorry. The truck’s already come. Looks like that c-note is headed for the landfill. It will probably be found by future generations, but be so decayed by then that it will have no value. Pity about all the poisons that will have leached into the environment.

What am I talking about? E-waste. That’s short for electronic waste. Ah, I’ll bet you can guess what’s going on now. The $100 bill in the trash wasn’t in the form of a greenback. It represents the value of that smartphone or navigation system you chucked because you bought a newer model. You can set it out for pickup or you can send it in for cash. It’s your choice.

Electronic waste has been a problem since the first radios and TVs started showing up at the city dump. Nobody made a big deal of it because the early electronic appliances were big, expensive and not likely to be trashed until after decades of service. There was also a lot less environmental awareness back then. That doesn’t mean that these things were benign trash like old chairs or broken window panes. Those metal chassis were chock full of lead solder and chemical filled electrolytic capacitors. Some had batteries with paper wrappers that quickly decomposed.

Fast forward to today’s electronics. Cell phones have a life cycle of around two years each. That’s how long it takes for the contract to expire. With the rapid advance of technology, many people want a new phone every couple of years just to get the latest goodies. They can often get a cell phone for free when they sign a new contract.

Computers don’t fare much better, especially in business. Few microprocessor boards ever wear out. They go obsolete years before they would have failed in service. All those circuit boards are still full of lead solder and components made of various elements. Some, like gold, are valuable. Many are toxic and tend to leach out when exposed to water over many years. Think of the millions and millions of electronic circuit boards piling up as electronic waste, and you begin to sense the potential size of the cleanup problem downstream.

Just as tragic is the residual value of the electronic devices being casually tossed away. Some people may take a stab at selling their old gear using ads on craigslist or eBay. For most, though, that's just way too much effort for the expected reward. After all, that old gadget doesn’t have any value to them since they aren’t using it any more. What they don’t know is that for almost no effort whatsoever they could be pocketing $10, $20, $50, even $100 or more for that “electronic junk.”

What types of devices are we talking about? Cell phones, of course. But also some laptop computers, digital cameras, MP3 players, PDAs, gaming consoles, GPS devices, LCD monitors, satellite radios, projectors, streaming media devices, home audio equipment, camcorders, external drives and Blu-ray players. Even content such as movies on DVD and video games may have residual value.

How can you be sure that you have something of value rather than junk? Better yet, how can you cash in with little effort? The way to do that is to sell your used electronic devices to a recycler that specializes in trading cash for gadgets. You simply visit the website and check the value of what you have in whatever condition its in. If you like what you see, you request a free prepaid mailer and send your gadget in for evaluation. Once approved, a check will be on its way to you quickly. Even if your offering has no remaining financial value, you can still send it in for proper recycling as the responsible thing to do.

So, treat yourself to a fancy coffee or a nice cold beer with part of your proceeds. Be sure to toast the device that served you well through those years and then gave you the opportunity to get a little cash at the end. From now on, you’ll be collecting on all your e-waste.