For most Americans, the word recycle brings to mind an image of green bins overflowing with newspapers, plastic bottles and soda cans that are later molded into something useful.
What they probably don't picture is their waste being sold to Third World countries at a profit for certain companies – which appears to be the case with cell-phone recycling programs.
Customers who visit any cell-phone retail store or an office-supply chain like Staples will find a recycling bin urging cell-phone users to do their fair share for the environment. "Recycle your old phone, PDA or pager here," a tall plastic stand at Staples reads.
But what Staples and other retailers don't tell customers is that phones dropped off at the bins are likely to be sold to Third World cell-phone operators with the profits split among various companies – including Staples.
"That would be called reuse, rather than recycling," said Sarah Westervelt, a toxics researcher for the environmental group Basel Action Network.
Nevertheless, the practice has become standard operating procedure for all cell-phone recycling programs, which have sprung up in recent years following the steady proliferation of mobile phones in the country.
With 128 million cell-phone users in the United States upgrading their phones at an average pace of every 18 months, it's no wonder carriers are attempting to keep as many phones as possible out of the landfills. Mobile phones contain a long list of toxic substances – including arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, lead and mercury – which could later seep into the water supply and bring health problems to those who drink water or eat seafood, according to Inform, an environmental research agency in New York.
About 130 million cell phones will be "retired" in some way annually in the United States, Inform said.
Recycling the phones in the traditional sense of melting and molding them is not necessarily a good option for the environment because the procedure could leak toxic chemicals into the air, said Johanna O'Kelley, director of licensing for environmental activist group Sierra Club.
Selling the cell phones "is like passing down clothes to a sibling or to a friend or to charity," O'Kelley said. "It's better that these clothes be used than thrown away and incinerated."
Still, there is no guarantee that these phones won't end up in landfills once they are sold.
"It really falls into a gray area from our perspective," Westervelt said. "Those cell phones have shorter life spans than new phones. They will become waste down there and they (the poor countries) don't have the infrastructure or the funds to dispose of them."
Nonetheless, Staples and cell-phone carriers stand by their "recycling" methods.
Staples partnered with a company called CollectiveGood International to put up the mobile phone recycling bins in all of its stores. But the bins' plainly worded signs don't tell customers that CollectiveGood is a for-profit business that buys all the phones outright and then sells many of them to Latin American companies. It then delivers most of the proceeds to Staples, which, in turn, donates the money to – Sierra Club.
CollectiveGood President Seth Heine wouldn't say how much money his company has generated from the Staples recycling program, which is only a couple of months old. But he said his company generally receives about 5,000 to 7,000 phones a month, which he later sells for up to $15 each.
"I still drive a 10-year-old car," he said. "We do not make millions."
Also, Heine defended his company's decision to sell the phones to Latin American carriers. Even though he conceded that he had no control over the phones once they were sold, he said the carriers were selling them at a fraction of the cost of a new phone and making it possible for many families to own phones – sometimes for the first time.
"Let's not lose sight that when a phone goes back to Latin America, it goes to families who have never used a phone before," Heine said. "Their buying and replacement habits are not at all like in the United States."
Heine criticized competing cell-phone recycling programs for misleading customers as to where the phones go. He said that certain cell-phone carriers, which tend to run their cell-phone recycling programs under an umbrella group called the Wireless Foundation, put out the "misconception" that the phones go to battered women's shelters when in fact they are resold at a profit.
While these carriers aren't upfront about where the phones eventually land, they do offer more information on their recycling bins than Staples does.
Verizon Wireless is the only carrier that is not a member of the Wireless Foundation.
"Verizon, being the largest wireless carrier, felt that they could benefit better from going it alone," said David Diggs, executive director of the Wireless Foundation. In all of Verizon's retail stores are cardboard recycling bins with this piece of information: "Your donation will be used to support nonprofit organizations committed to combating domestic violence, providing emergency relief and supporting health and education initiatives."
Verizon, indeed, fulfills its promise – but in a roundabout way. The phones in the bins don't go to nonprofit organizations directly. They actually are shipped to a company called ReCellular, which also collects old phones from carriers involved with the Wireless Foundation. ReCellular, which picks up between 15,000 and 20,000 phones a day – typically, six days a week – scours through the bins to determine which phones are to be broken down and recycled and which ones can be reused. Generally, the company is able to sell 75 percent of the phones to Third World carriers, said Eric Forster, vice president of marketing for ReCellular.
ReCellular has generated "tens of millions of dollars" in this fashion, returning 70 percent of the profits to carriers and keeping 30 percent of the money for itself, Forster said.
"We try to maximize the sale price of the product," Forster said. "Some phones are sold in used condition. Some phones are sold in refurbished condition … however it generates more money for the partners."
The carriers, naturally, defended their relationship with ReCellular.
Verizon spokeswoman Andrea Linskey said all the money her company receives from ReCellular goes back into the recycling program. About $1.4 million, or 95 percent of the proceeds from old cell phone sales, have gone to domestic violence shelters in the form of phones, airtime and money, Linskey said. The remaining 5 percent of the profits help run the program, she said.
"We're not doing this to make money," Linskey said.
Diggs echoed Linskey. He said his group has donated $5.8 million to a host of causes, including the American Red Cross, Easter Seals and the National Organization on Disability.
However, Sierra Club's O'Kelley did express some reservations concerning how Staples was marketing the program to customers.
"We are doing rewording of the bins in the Staples stores," O'Kelley said. "That's a really great point to make that these phones will be recycled, or refurbished, or reused. The advertising that we've put together with Staples does describe it (the program) in more detail."
