Round 'em up: there's gold in them thar mobiles

Stuart Corner
Monday, 29 October 2007 12:10

IT Industry - Deals

ABI Research industry analyst, Shailendra Pandey, suggested that recycled and refurbished handsets could help mobile operators in improving per-customer profitability by allowing better management of subscriber acquisition costs. "Operators can use these handsets to address low ARPU subscribers and start generating profits on low margin accounts quickly, rather than having to wait to recover subsidies on new handsets."

ABI Research says that, thanks to the efforts of mobile operators, retailers, recycling companies, handset vendors, charities and various take-back schemes, more users have started to return their old, no longer used handsets for recycling. "Handsets for refurbishment are also becoming available in good numbers as more and more operators now accept handset returns for full refund, or new replacement, within 14 days or a month of purchase by the customers. These returned handsets, which are relatively new, are being refurbished for resale...Recycled and refurbished handsets can also make the second-hand mobile phone market stronger, more legitimate, and more reliable for buyers."

However, Read told iTWire that, in Australia there was not a huge market for used phones and while there were organisations that used charities to collect old phones for shipment offshore and for resale into emerging markets, AMTA did not support or endorse this practice because of questionable disposal practices in many overseas countries - Mobile phones are not biodegradable and contain small amounts of potentially hazardous substances such as cadmium in NiCad batteries which if not managed properly can harm the environment

In Australia, the first handset recycling programme, 'Phones for Planet Ark' was launched in late 1999 as a joint initiative of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) and Planet Ark. It aimed to recycle 120 tonnes of mobile phones and mobile batteries annually. At that time, AMTA estimated that 10 million mobile phones were lying unused in homes and offices around Australia.

The campaign had only limited success. In December 2004, AMTA reported that a total of 280 tonnes of phones and batteries had been collected since the programme's launch, this despite a surge in take-up of mobile phones that exceeded expectations. In 2005 AMTA ramped up the initiative with the appointment of Read as a manager dedicated to heading up the industry recycling program. Read said at the time that she would "explore new and innovative ways to increase collections of disused mobile phones for recycling," and that "AMTA's mobile phone recycling program would be "a self-funded program with full-time dedicated staff and resources, an active whole-of-industry participation and unity of purpose."

The revamped programme, under the name 'MobileMuster' was launched in December 2005 with the goal of recycling one million mobiles and batteries a year by 2008. MobileMuster said this week that 454 tonnes of handsets, batteries and accessories had been collected since the first recycling program was initiated in late 1999. This includes 2.7 million batteries and handsets (as at 30 June 2007).