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Cell Phone Recycling in Brazil Weak?
By Keith R | August 6, 2008
Topics: Electronic/Electrical Equipment, Waste & Recycling | 2 Comments »
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Last month Nokia publicized the results of a survey it commissioned of 6,500 consumers in 13 nations, among them Brazil (the only LAC nation included). By now you know the drill — this is The Temas Blog, so we care mostly about the LAC nation involved and very little about the other 12! [Besides, I am certain that many other blogs and news services regurgitated the Nokia press releases word-for-word, so you already most of that stuff anyway!]
The survey found that 74% of Brazilians agree that recycling cell phones is good for the environment. Even so, despite the cell phone recycling programs launched in Brazil by Vivo, Motorola, Claro and Nokia, only 2% of Brazilians actually recycle their phones. Bad as that may sound, it proved roughly in line with the rest of the world: the average recycling rate for the 13 nations was just 3%.
What do Brazilians do with their old cell phones? 32% (vs. 44% average for the nations surveyed) have them stashed unused somewhere in their homes. 29% give their old cell to another person to use, and 10% simply throw the old phone into the trash (vs. a 4% average among the nations surveyed). Currently Brazil does not have national legislation blocking used cells from going to landfills and requiring their take-back and recycling, although some states’ waste laws call for take-back of e-scrap, and WEEE bills are pending at both the state and federal levels.
Why aren’t Brazilians recycling their old cell phones? Half said because they didn’t know how how/where to recycle them. This despite the fact that Vivo already has established 3,400 collection points across Brazil (they claim to have collected over 450,000 units so far this year), while Nokia has only 162 and Claro 140 store collection points (but plans to extend to 3,300 collection points across Brazil by year-end — mostly authorized Claro dealers).
Clearly cell phone manufacturers and their partners in the cell service community in Brazil need to educate Brazilian consumers on the importance of returning their old phones, to provide consumers with some sort of motivation/incentive to dig up those old cells in storage and turn them in, and to make used cell collection points more plentiful and visible.
Identifying such needs is exactly why Nokia commissioned the survey. Now let’s hope that they vigorously and quickly address them, not only in Brazil, but in all LAC nations in which Nokia sells phones. And let’s hope the other phone manufacturers view this as wake-up call and do likewise, or else soon face a wave of WEEE legislation across the region.
For other Temas entries on cell phone collection and recycling in LAC, see
- “Cell Phone Recycling in Mexico”
- “A Cell Phone Recycling Deal for Chile”
- “Cell Phone Battery Agreement Signed in Colombia”
- “Ecomoto Comes to Colombia”
- “Motorola Launches Cell Phone Take-Back Program in Latin America”
- “Greener Cell Phones?”
- “Major Cell Phone Recycling Deal for Brazil”
- “The Other Side of the Cell Phone Revolution”
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From Nokia:
Global consumer survey reveals that majority of old mobile phones are lying in drawers at home and not being recycled
Only 3% of people recycle their mobile phones despite the fact that most have old devices lying around at home that they no longer want, according to a global consumer survey released by Nokia today. Three out of every four people added that they don’t even think about recycling their devices and nearly half were unaware that it is even possible to do so.
The survey is based on interviews with 6,500 people in 13 countries including Finland, Germany, Italy, Russia, Sweden, UK, United Arab Emirates, USA, Nigeria, India, China, Indonesia and Brazil. It was conducted to help Nokia find out more about consumers’ attitudes and behaviors towards recycling, and inform the company’s take-back programs and efforts to increase recycling rates of unused mobile devices.
Markus Terho, Director of Environmental Affairs, Markets, at Nokia said, “It is clear from this survey that when mobile devices finally reach the end of their lives that very few of them are recycled. Many people are simply unaware that these old and unused mobiles lying around in drawers can be recycled or how to do this. Nokia is working hard to make it easier, providing more information and expanding our global take-back programs.” He added, “If each of the three billion people globally owning mobiles brought back just one unused device we could save 240,000 tonnes of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gases to the same effect as taking 4 million cars off the road. By working together, small individual actions could add up to make a big difference.”
The findings highlight that despite the fact that people on average have each owned around five phones, very few of these are being recycled once they are no longer used. Only 3% said they had recycled their old phone. Yet very few old devices, 4%, are being thrown into landfill. Instead the majority, 44%, are simply being kept at homes never used. Others are giving their mobiles another life in different ways, one quarter are passing on their old phones to friends or family, and 16% of people are selling their used devices particularly in emerging markets.
Globally, 74% of consumers said they don’t think about recycling their phones, despite the fact that around the same number, 72%, think recycling makes a difference to the environment. This was consistent across many different countries with 88% of people in Indonesia not considering recycling unwanted devices, 84% in India, and 78% of people in Brazil, Sweden, Germany and Finland.
The survey revealed that one of the main reasons why so few people recycle their mobile phones is because they simply don’t know that it is possible to do so. In fact, up to 80% of any Nokia device is recyclable and precious materials within it can be reused to help make new products such as kitchen kettles, park benches, dental fillings or even saxophones and other metal musical instruments. Globally, half of those surveyed didn’t know phones could be recycled like this, with awareness lowest in India at 17% and Indonesia at 29%, and highest in the UK at 80% and 66% in Finland and Sweden.
Mr Terho said, “Using the best recycling technology nothing is wasted. Between 65 – 80 per cent of a Nokia device can be recycled. Plastics that can’t be recycled are burnt to provide energy for the recycling process, and other materials are ground up into chips and used as construction materials or for building roads. In this way nothing has to go to landfill.”
Many people interviewed for the survey, even if they were aware that a device could be recycled, did not know how to go about doing this. Two thirds said they did not know how to recycle an unwanted device and 71% were unaware of where to do this.
Nokia has collection points for unwanted mobile devices in 85 countries around the world, the largest voluntary scheme in the mobile industry. People can drop off their old devices at Nokia stores and almost 5,000 Nokia Care Centers. To find their nearest take back point people can visit www.nokia.com/werecycle.
Responding to the survey findings Nokia is developing a series of campaigns and activities to give people more information on why, how and where to recycle their old and unwanted devices, chargers and mobile accessories. The company is also expanding its global take-back program by adding many more collection bins and promoting these in store to raise greater awareness.
Tags: Alemanha, Brasil, Brazil, cell phones, cellular telephones, China, dental fillings, e-lixo, e-scrap, e-waste, encuesta, EUA, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italia, Italy, kitchen kettles, landfill, levantamento, lixo tecnologico, mobile phones, Nigeria, Nokia, park benches, RAEE, reciclagem, recycling, Russia, saxophones, scrap electronics, survey, Sweden, take-back, teléfonos celulares, UAE, UK, United Arab Emirates, USA, WEEE
August 6th, 2008 at 3:13
[…] ALLOBUZZ – AGENCE DE BUZZ E-COMMERCE placed an interesting blog post on Cell Phone Recycling in Brazil Weak?Here’s a brief overviewTemasEtUnam Last month Nokia publicized the results of a survey it commissioned of 6,500 consumers in 13 nations, among them Brazil (the only LAC nation included). By now you know the drill — this is The Temas Blog, so we care mostly about the LAC nation involved and very little about the other 12! [Besides, I am certain that many other blogs and news services regurgitated the Nokia press releases word-for-word, so you already most of that stuff anyway!] The survey found that 74% of Brazilia […]
August 6th, 2008 at 15:50
Knowing where to recycle your phones is a big problem. I have two old ones of mine that just sit around because I don’t know where to go to recycle and I it is easier to just let them sit there than to find out.