More than 100 million cell phones are in the hands of users in the United States today, which only represents a fraction of the number of handsets floating around the world.
And millions more are on the way.
So what happens to the old phones? Environmentalists are worried that a steady stream of obsolete phones to the trash heap will only exacerbate the existing problem of toxic materials that old computer parts bring to landfills.
"We're starting to get it on our radar screen," said Leslie Byster, spokeswoman for the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. "Some of the same circuitry for computers is miniaturized for the cell phone, and we're realizing that the same way computers are a problem, cell phones will be, too."
Some of the metals contained in the phones -- including lead, mercury and cadmium from old nickel batteries -- could be an environmental hazard in landfills. If decomposed after long periods of time and leaked into ground water, these metals could wreak toxic havoc for streams, wildlife and drinking water, Byster said.
While landfill leakage is a possible consequence of disposed phones, the Environmental Protection Agency has more pressing concerns. As technology improves, and the phones themselves garner more bells and whistles, people are shelving older models more quickly. Companies have already begun marketing so-called disposable phones.
"Things cheap to produce, like cell phones, will have shorter and shorter lifespans, and they'll have an obsolescence of a year or less in the future," said David Jones, of the EPA's Office of Strategic Planning in San Francisco. "They will become a disposable commodity much faster than other electronics."
The EPA has found that electronic waste is growing at a rate two to three times faster than any other waste stream, Jones said.
Therefore, environmentalists are urging the recycling of old cell phones. In addition to reducing the hazards in landfills, reusing the metals inside will save us the energy of mining new metallic ores and its impact on the environment.
A few industry valves have opened to alleviate the strain. The metals and plastics from cell phones can either be sold or donated to recycling firms, like those found on Electronics Recycling.Net. Donate-a-Phone, the reuse program established by the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, collects donated phones and refurbishes them. They are then donated to neighborhood watch groups, shelters for battered women and schools. And Collective Good International collects old phones and redistributes them throughout rural North America and Latin America.
Not every part of a cell phone can be recycled, and even phones that go into reuse programs will eventually stop working and become useless. Thus, the problem of how and where to dispose of them will inevitably surface.
"No one's done any study to look at that yet," Byster said. "Phones are much smaller, but there will be many more of them getting junked."
Travis Larson, spokesperson for the CTIA, says his organization hasn't "the slightest clue" as to what the effects of a cell phone in a landfill could be, or how many of them are there now or will be there in the future. That's troubling to environmental groups.
"Until companies start taking responsibility and designing for the environment, and make plans for take-back programs at the end of a product's life, it will continue to be a problem," Byster said.
