Mobile phone makers to help dispose of old handsets

Major mobile phone manufacturers have signed a declaration expressing their interest in cooperating with the Basel Convention and with other stakeholders in the mobile-phone sector on the environmentally sound management of end-of-life mobile phones.



The Initiative for a Sustainable Partnership on Environmentally Sound Management of End-of-life Mobile Phones addresses the recovery of this popular consumer product using a life-cycle approach. It is expected to be only the first of many such agreements to be developed between various industry sectors and the Basel Convention during the coming years. Manufacturers supporting the proposed mobile phone initiative are LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Philips, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson.



Modern mobile phones contain plastics and metals and older varieties can have hazardous nickel-cadmium batteries.” This is a ground-breaking development,” UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer told a news conference.” I believe we will go more and more into a ‘life cycle’ economy. We will have more and more producer responsibility for their products from the very beginning to the end,” said Toepfer, a former German environment minister. Under the accord, which sets no firm targets or timetable, industry will participate in UNEP working groups to draw up effective programs for collecting end-of-life phones. Developing countries will be helped with developing laws and regulations, and setting up recycling firms.



But major manufacturers said that ultimately consumers everywhere would have to learn to return their old mobile phones under take-back schemes modelled on those already launched in Australia, parts of Europe, and the United States. Recycling is a well-known technology, with smelter companies removing precious metals like gold, according to Mats Pellbaeck-Scharp, environment director at Sony-Ericsson, a joint venture between Swedish mobile equipment maker Ericsson and Japan’s giant Sony.



The estimated global market volume for mobile phones in 2001 was around 380 million units.