Mobile phones: That thing your grandmother has but doesn’t fully understand how to use. It seems that there’s a new must-have phone hitting the shelves every few days. We camp out in line to get our hands on one, casually tossing aside the older, seemingly out-of-date models. This can add up to a lot of waste and it's estimated that there are close to 5 million unused phones in Sydney alone.
Here’s the deal: Recycling phones is way better than throwing them out. About 99 per cent of the bits and pieces in mobile phones can be reused, but 40 million tonnes of electric still end up in landfill, which equates to a loss of about $68 billion in resources, which is no bueno. This is where you come in.
This summer not-for-profit legends MobileMuster and OzHarvest have teamed up to try and combat both of the problem of mobile phone waste and the 3.6 million people who experience food insecurity every year though their campaign called Mobile for a Meal.
Instead of just ditching your old Nokia brick or Motorola flip phone (remember those?), look up where the nearest recycling location is on the website (there are 3,500 sites nationwide), then drop off your old phone along with its charger and accessories. It’s that easy. You can even send it through the post if you can’t make it in person. For every phone that MobileMuster receives OzHarvest will provide a meal to someone going hungry or struggling to put food on the table.
Their goal is to recycle 70,000 phones, meaning 70,000 meals will be delivered to people who need it.
While you can recycle your old phone all year round, you’ve only got until the end of February to take part in this worthy cause. Will you answer the call?
Wondering what else you can do to give back? Here's our list of places to volunteer in Sydney.