Currently, more than 100 million cell phones remain unused every year. If we recycled them all, we could save enough energy to provide electricity for an entire year to 24,000 homes in the United States.

To do something about it, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched an initiative called Plug-In To eCycling, partnering with major cell phone manufacturers, mobile phone service providers and retailers, to encourage Americans to recycle their phones cell phones and accessories.

With the purpose of raising public awareness about the recycling of these mobile phones and the opportunities to donate them in order to increase the cell phone recycling rate nationwide.

The problem is not the volume of space that these mobile phones occupy, the problem is that they also have lithium-ion batteries, and these can become explosive if they are in too long contact with sunlight. They also cause contamination of the soil and water we drink.

If your cell phone still works but you have not used it for a long time, you can find information on how to donate them locally. Police departments and local abuse centers can take your cell phone and use it for those who may be in a crisis situation and do not have the resources to obtain a cell phone.

The reuse of mobile phones that are still operating is very important, someone who cannot get their own mobile phone could be benefiting.

We show you 2 ways by which you can choose to recycle your cell phone.

Solidarity Recycling

On the one hand, we can choose to do so without any lucrative purpose. For this, several NGO’s have different recycling plans through which, the money obtained from the transfer of our phones is donated to different causes.

Among these organizations we have Oxfam Intermon and Amnesty International both in collaboration with waste management companies, which assess whether the devices can be repaired and give them a second life or have to be recycled according to EPA standards.

Recycling for money

If we want to get some money from our old telephone we also have the possibility of selling them to companies that carry out the same valuation and in addition to performing a proper waste management, they pay us for it. Currently there are quite a few companies available that perform this type of services.

GREENTEK SOLUTIONS LLC, located in Houston, Texas, is a company dedicated to this type of service among others, since since 2012 it has been dedicated to the purchase and resale of electronic equipment offering the best market value and especially to the disposal and Electronic recycling in a responsible and environmentally friendly manner and are endorsed by the EPA.

Remember that it is possible in both cases that our phones do not end up being awakened, but may have a second life in the hands of someone, so do not forget to reset it with the factory settings before delivering it to prevent our personal data from being compromised. .