MOBILE PHONES & ACCESSORIES
The collected phones are sent to Mobile Muster for recycling.
More than 95% of the materials in mobile phones (like metals, plastic, and glass) can be recovered and used to make new products. Recycling keeps these materials in use and out of landfill, preventing hazardous items like mobile phone batteries from leaching toxic materials into the soil and groundwater.
When you recycle, you are also reducing the need to extract new materials like precious metals from the earth, saving our natural resources in the process. Additionally, recycling prevents pollution and improves air quality by reducing the demand for power used in mining, refining, processing, and shipping of raw materials.
According to MobileMuster, recycling 50,000 mobiles saves 99 tonnes of mineral resources and 19 tonnes of CO2-e emissions. To find out how much impact you’re making from recycling your phone, visit the MobileMuster Calculator.
What happens to my mobile when I recycle it? Mobile phones, accessories, and other accepted electronic items collected by MobileMuster are transported to one of two recycling facilities in Sydney and Melbourne. Products are dismantled manually with components separated into different streams: circuit boards, metal, glass, plastics, and batteries.
Some plastics and metals are processed in Australia, while circuit boards, batteries, and other plastics are processed by MobileMuster’s recycling partner at their facility in Singapore. These materials are recovered and used to make a range of new products including mobile phones, glass bottles, recycled plastic park benches, electronics, mobile phone batteries, and stainless-steel products.
Nothing the program collects is reused or resold. Mobile Muster’s priority is to recover the majority of materials to use in the manufacture of new products.