2 Million Mobile Phones to be Left on Scrapheap After Christmas

A new study from Tesco Mobile has found that an extra 2 million mobile phones are expected to go on the scrapheap this Christmas as Brits lack an understanding on how to recycle electronic waste.

Data from the Tesco Mobile survey found that almost 11 million people expect to get a new mobile phone over Christmas and that 20% of Brits just throw away old mobile handsets, even if they still work.

The survey also found that two thirds of Brits have no idea of how to recycle their gadgets with under 25s being the worst offenders - 36% of this age group admit to not knowing where their nearest recycling plant is situated.

Andy Dewhurst, chief executive officer of Tesco Mobile comments “These results are very worrying. We’ve decided to take positive steps in response to these findings and have recently launched an online mobile recycling service - www.tescomobilerecyle.com and re-launched our recycling envelopes in stores with the aim of recycling 1 million mobile phones in the next year alone, helping to reduce the number of handsets that go on the scrap heap and making it even easier for our customers to recycle easily.”

“As a nation, we’re becoming greater consumers of electronic goods and with constant technological advances we’re upgrading them more frequently too - these goods have almost become disposable.”

The concept of Tesco Mobile Recycle is simple - recycle any working mobile phone online and earn recycling rewards of up to £70 of Tesco Mobile airtime or Tesco gift vouchers. Plus, users can get 300 Green Clubcard Points, or donate £3 to the British Red Cross.

Because green issues are important to Tesco Telecoms, they’ve made the mobile recycling process very easy - and free. Users just need to visit the new Tesco Mobile Recycle website, select their chosen handset to see what rewards they can get for recycling and input their details to receive a postage paid envelope. Once they have this they can simply pop their phone in and post it back. When Tesco Mobile have received and checked the mobile phones, customers receive their recycling rewards.

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