Cell phone recycling plant in Wales: largest for unwanted handsets in Europe
September 11, 2007 | Filed under Cell Phone Information, Cell Phones
November will see the door open to the largest Cell phone recycling plant in Europe, the plant which is located in Wales will do business with logistics specialist Excel. The recycling plant has cost £15 million and will be able to disassembling at least 500,000 handsets a month.
That means that the plant will be able to handle at least 6 million handsets each year, but that is a drop in the ocean as it is estimated that 125 million cell phone handsets are discarded ever year, the recycling plant will help towards this problem but more will need to be done.
Excel who will run the plant has said that 95 percent of the handsets will be refurbished, and will then be resold to developing nations around the world for only 60 percent of the cost of a new cell phone.
Do you think that this is a good idea, or do you think that it is just passing the disposal problem to these developing nations who would find it harder to deal with the problem?
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Hi there,
I think the idea of recycling all these handsets is a brilliant idea…it will be a drop in the recycling ocean but at least 6 million handsets will be recycled instead of just being dumped in landfills etc.
I think the idea of selling the ‘new’ phones to developing nations is a good plan in theory but i feel that there should be some recycling scheme put in place to make sure that these handsets can be returned to developed countries for more recycling or an internal recycling system should be set up in the countries themselves. Not sure how this would be implemented though…
Bobby