Tesco offers mobile phone recycling

To counter the 2 million handsets to be dumped this Christmas

12 November 2007 7:47 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Tesco is launching a mobile phone recycling scheme.

Citing data from a recent Tesco Mobile survey saying that almost 11 million people expect to get a new mobile phone over Christmas it seems 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".

Tesco Mobile Recycle will let let people recycle any working mobile phone online and earn recycling rewards of up to £70 of Tesco Mobile airtime, Tesco gift vouchers, 300 Green Clubcard Points, or donate £3 to the British Red Cross.

Users 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. When Tesco Mobile have received and checked the mobile phones, customers receive their recycling rewards.

Full tags

Phones, Mobile phone industry, Tesco, Eco