Talkin' Trash About Your Old Cell Phone?

Feel like your cell phone conversations last longer than your cell phone? You're not alone. According to a recent report by the environmental research organization INFORM, the average cell phone is used for only 18 months. By 2005, in the US alone, about 130 million of these handy little devices a year (about 65,000 tons all told) will make their last call.

Now are we talking trash? Let's hope not. These ever-smaller electronic ear-boxes create ever-larger toxic waste problems. Deposited in landfills or burned in incinerators, cell phones and their batteries introduce damaging substances into the environment that threaten human health, substances associated with cancer and a range of reproductive, neurological and developmental disorders, including:

• Metals such as arsenic, antimony, beryllium, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel and zinc (electronic waste contributes substantially to the lead found in landfills)
• Brominated flame retardants, and
• Dioxins and furans (produced during incineration)

Toxins or no toxins, it's hard to imagine tossing these toy-sized talkies after only a year and a half. So don't. Recycle them or safely dispose of them using one of these resources (Note: The local New York City resources may have local counterparts in your region):

Cell Phone Recycling and Re-use Options

Don't hang up...

Consider as well these other actions to get manufacturers to produce less toxic electronics and maintain product take back programs:

Get the lead out. European and Japanese manufacturers of cell phones have already eliminated lead and brominated flame retardants from their products, and the European Union is poised to eliminate these toxins from cell phones sold in Europe. US manufacturers, however, are making no phaseout guarantees, and could use some persuading to reduce their products' toxic load. Write to US cell phone manufacturers to urge them to make their products less toxic and to take back and safely dispose of these phones:

AudioVox, 800-229-1235 or 800-645-4994
Motorola, 800-331-6456
NeoPoint, 858-458-2800

Take it back. State and local legislation could make producers responsible for taking back electronic waste and keeping toxins out of the environment (a policy known as Extended Producer Responsibility). See if your state has any e-waste bills in committee or e-waste laws on the books. (The National Caucus of Environmental Legislators offers an up-to-date, state-by-state list of e-waste legislation, including Extended Producer Responsibility bills.) If so, write to your representatives to get these bills out of committee and passed or to ensure that existing mandates are adequately funded and enforced.

Resources and Referencess

"Burned by Flame Retardants?" Charlotte Schubert, Science News, Vol. 160, No. 15, Oct. 13, 2001, p. 238, available at www.sciencenews.org/20011013/bob18.asp

"Just Say No to E-Waste," Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, www.svtc.org/cleancc/pubs/sayno.htm

"Waste in the Wireless World: The Challenge of Cell Phones," Bette K. Fishbein, INFORM, Inc., www.informinc.org/cellphone.htm