AMTA ramps up to recycle more cellphones

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 30 October 2005 13:40

IT Industry - Deals

The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) is hoping to boost the percentage of old cellphones and batteries that get recycled by appointing a dedicated manager of the Mobile Phone Industry Recycling Program.

The appointee is Rose Read, the former general manager of Clean Up Australia and of Clean Up the World for almost four years. She has more than 20 years experience in natural resources and environmental management.

Announcing her appointment, AMTA CEO, Graham Chalker, said: "The mobile phone industry is allocating more resources with full-time dedicated staff to drive the development and expansion of its recycling program. AMTA has reintroduced a levy on its members to fund the new activities of the program. This will provide the resources to implement the program's new campaign strategy."

Chalker added that Read would guide the launch later this year of the industry's new national campaign – mobilemuster – which aims to boost awareness and increase recycling volumes of disused mobile phones and batteries..

The levy, which has been in place since August is $0.42 per handset sold and AMTA estimates it will raise about $2.5 million in the first year.

The Australian Financial Review reported in August that AMTA had come under pressure from state and federal governments to boost its recycling programme with some estimates putting the percentage of phones recycled as only two percent. The report said that AMTA was negotiating a recycling target after rejecting calls for a 50 percent target.

AMTA spokesman, Randal Markey, told ITWire that a target had been negotiated saying that it would be revealed in about a month when the recycling campaign is formally launched, but he declined to reveal the figure in advance of that date.

A survey conducted by AMTA in May found that around 12 million old phones were being kept by their owners. Forty two percent of respondents kept their old mobile phones – even if they did not work. A further 18 percent gave their old phone to a family member or friend nine percent threw them away and only four percent recycled.

AMTA said that its recycling program, which started full-scale operation five years ago, has collected 300 tonnes of handsets, batteries and accessories equating to 1.15 million batteries and 500,000 handsets. By early this year, the industry had spent $3.5 million finding the recycling programme.