New Partnership Starts ‘Phone Brigades’
ReCellular, a leading electronics sustainability firm, recently announced a new partnership with TerraCycle to establish over 1,000 “phone brigades” by the end of the year, building on a similar concept previously launched by TerraCycle. The brigades will collect and donate cell phones, raise funds for local causes and keep e-waste out of landfills.
“Economic, social and environmental sustainability have been at the core of our business long before the term ‘triple-bottom line’ was coined,” says Chuck Newman, CEO and founder of ReCellular. “Today, we are proud to be a part of the emerging green economy, and to partner with an innovative company such as TerraCycle. We look forward to expanding this relationship over the coming months.”
The Phone Brigade program could be a way to earn money for your favorite charity. Photo: Inhabitat.com
The partnership provides a solution for TerraCycle to expand their upcycling efforts to include consumer electronics. First launching the Brigade concept in 2006, TerraCycle pays schools and non-profits to collect 20-ounce soda bottles. Today, more than 20,000 participating locations are part of the Brigades, and the programs have raised more than $100,000 from millions of reused and recycled soda bottles, yogurt cups and snack wrappers. This money, primarily, has been donated to public-school organizations.
According to TerraCycle, the company “decided to expand their upcycling collections to help address the estimated 65,000 tons of cell phones that are discarded every year.” Cell phones contain both hazardous chemicals and valuable materials for reclamation, making them ideal for recycling.
Anyone can sign up to participate in the TerraCycle Phone Brigade, and volunteers will receive donation boxes for collecting and shipping phones. Brigades will be compensated for each item they collect, which provides schools and other grassroots organizations with new ways to fundraise.
The phones will be delivered to the ReCellular phone processing facility, where they will be either refurbished and reprogrammed for reuse, or are recycled to reclaim materials needed to make new electronics equipment.
In 2008, ReCellular collected over 5.5 million phones and raised over $4 million for charities across the country.
