DUBLIN, Ireland-A new initiative launched by the major U.K. mobile operators and retailers will, it is hoped, reduce the environmental impact of the 15 million mobile phones replaced in the United Kingdom each year.
The Fonebak recycling scheme will see retailers accept handsets, batteries and accessories, including chargers, for free recycling, even if they did not originally supply the equipment.
Every handset will be tested to determine whether it can be sold to developing countries for reuse or processed to retrieve some of the precious metals, such as gold and silver, which handsets contain.
The scheme is the first to comply with current legislation and the forthcoming Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, which sets guidelines and targets for recycling potentially harmful electrical waste.
The new legislation, which comes into force next year, will require mobile-phone producers and distributors to be responsible for taking back and recycling old handsets and accessories in an environmentally efficient way. Manufacturers will have to prove they are meeting specific targets for recycling.
The organizer of the scheme, Shields Environmental, estimates that there could be up to 100 million discarded mobile phones in the United Kingdom.
