According to a recent survey carried out by one of the World’s biggest handset manufacturers, Nokia only 3% of people would recycle their old mobiles despite the fact that many still have old handsets lying around in their homes.
The survey results was based on interviews with over 6,500 people in 13 different countries around the world and was conducted to help Nokia find out about people’s attitudes towards recycling.
The research found that three out of four people wouldn’t even consider recycling their old phones and nearly half still were not aware that recycling was even an option.
If each of the 3 billion mobile phone owners in the world sent just one handset in for recycling, over 240,000 tonnes of raw materials could be saved and greenhouse gases reduced.
Recent research carried out in the UK shows that recycling rates have more than doubled over the past 5 years which is great news for the environment. UK Mobile phone recycling rates also have risen in the last couple of years, although many people will not consider recycling old electronics without some form of incentive.