Nokia to reward recyclers of old handsets

Recycling campaign will cost Nokia tens of thousands of euros

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The Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia is encouraging consumers to return their old handsets for recycling.
      In Finnish post offices and with authorised post office agents, prepaid envelopes have been made available in which people can return their old phones to Nokia.
      “The company will also receive handsets manufactured by its competitors”, explains Markus Terho, Director of Environmental Affairs at Nokia.
      Nokia will cover the recycling campaign’s expenses.
      “The cost of the campaign will depend on how many phones get returned. In any case we are talking about tens of thousands of euros. All the returned handsets will be recompensed.”
     
Nokia will reward the recyclers with one song from the company’s music store, one N-Gage game, or a seven-day navigation licence.
      The licence entitles the consumer to a service, which will guide one to a given address.
      Nokia implemented a similar recycling campaign in Finland also last year. At that time 14,000 handsets were returned.
      “We can utilise all the material from the returned handsets, for example in metal refininig. Even the plastic components can be utilised by using them as fuel in the metallurgic recycling processes. In all, around 80 per cent of the mobile phone materials can be recycled”, Terho estimates.
      With the recycling campaign Nokia aims to increase the consumers’ familiarity with the company’s new services.
      “The main motivation is to increase people’s knowledge with regard to the recycling of phones. For some reason people are prepared to recycle bottles and waste, but not phone handsets.”
     
According to Terho, one does not need to worry about privacy protection, even though a small fraction of the returned phones may be used as replacement phones for handsets brought in for repairs.
      “All the phones will be reset with factory settings. One can also do that at home from the phone’s menu before returning it.”


Links:
  Nokia: Rewarding recycling (Webpage in Finnish)

Helsingin Sanomat