Introducing your store to new customers through recycling

By Lorna Brett

MobileMuster says that Australia is a nation of mobile phone hoarders, with a staggering one third of us hanging onto more than two old mobiles. This out-dated technology can be very useful in the now though, if people are able to let go of their old phones and recycle them.

MobileMuster has begun to seriously ramp up its 2010 campaign, believing that mobile recycling will increase if Australian's are made aware of how useful their old phones can be. According to the organisation over 90% of a phone can be recycled, with the recovered parts making pots and pans, fence posts and of course - new mobiles.

Some surprising numbers

Figures released by MobileMuster put the impact of handset recycling into perspective. Numbers in their press release show that if Australians recycled the 14-16 million idle mobiles littering desk drawers, that their parts could make 160,000 plastic fence posts (enough for a fence from Sydney to Melbourne), 31,000 gold wedding rings and 3.2 million aluminium cans . The group believes that it's incredible figures like these that will increase recycling.

"Over the month of October 2009, MobileMuster received nearly 270 different brands and models of mobiles for recycling that date back to 1987, including analogue mobiles that were phased out in 2000 and can no longer be used," MobileMuster recycling manager Rose Read said.

"Eight out of the top 10 mobiles recycled in October 2009 were four or more years old. Typically we don't receive many phones that are less than 12 months old unless they are broken," Read added.