Only in Australia would they mount a campaign to convert old mobile phones into fence posts. MobileMuster, the official Aussie recycling program for the mobile phone industry, has launched two campaigns to help victims of the recent bush fires in Victoria, both humans and the original wildlife, reports Tony Poulos.
Under the ‘Old Phones, More Trees’ campaign, now in its third year, a native tree is planted for ever mobile phone handed in for recycling throughout May and until World Environment Day on June 5.
The idea is that people look into their drawers at home and at work and pull out their old and unused mobile phones and hand them in for recycling.
This year the campaign will support a project to plant native trees in an area affected by severe bush fires in January 2006 when thousands of native animals which lived in the forest perished.
Planting of the new trees will establish essential wildlife corridors, linking remnant bush land and providing easy escape routes for animals during fires.
With the second challenge, for every 5 kg of old mobile phones handed in for recycling by schools, MobileMuster and Australian Composite Technology (ACT) will donate one of its 'Plasmar' fence posts (made from recycled polymer material) to communities affected by the recent Victorian bush fires
That initiative highlights the fact that 90 per cent of the materials found in mobile phones can be recovered to make new products. The plastics from handsets and chargers can be shredded and combined with other plastics to make the fence posts; the metals and plastic found in mobile phones can be reused to make new products such as jewellery and stainless steel products such as saucepans.
For more on green issues in telecoms, see TelecomTV's Green Planet series.
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