Recycle a phone, plant a tree
in brief A new initiative dubbed “Old Phones, New Trees” will see a new native tree planted for every mobile recycled until the end of June.
The campaign is a partnership between not-for-profit group Landcare and MobileMuster, the official recycling program for the Australian Mobile Telecommunication Association (AMTA).
According to MobileMuster’s Web site, phones can be dropped off at 1,900 locations throughout Australia including mobile phone retailers Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, 3 Mobile, Virgin Mobile, Crazy Johns, FoneZone, Allphones as well as 160 councils and participating Sydney Credit Union and ANZ branches.
In a statement, AMTA recycling program manager Rose Read said it was “vital that these mobiles are recycled and don’t end up in landfill where small amounts of potentially hazardous substances such as lead or cadmium could be released into the environment.”