The Increase in Popularity of Mobile Phone Recycling Sites

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Just about everyone has a mobile phone these days and many people upgrade their phone every one to two years. When you have a new phone, there’s no reason for your old one to sit in a drawer or go in the garbage. Mobile phone recycling makes it possible for you to sell back your phone, get paid for its value, and allow it to be used again.

Mobile phone recycling websites have increased in popularity as many more people have begun to look online for information about recycling their mobile phones. Recycling programs only work if people are aware of how to use them and know where they can recycle their old mobile phones. With these new websites, recycling a mobile phone is a simple process that doesn't take a lot of time or effort.

The amount of money you can get for your phone will vary between websites, so comparison sites such as Sell My Old Mobile Phone allow you to compare prices in one step and find the best place for your old mobile phone.

Mobile phone recycling has been growing in popularity as more and more people have started to rely on mobile phones. People are also becoming more aware of their environmental impact and are hesitant to throw things away that can still be used. Recycling a mobile phone is a better choice for the environment as it prevents old phones from finding their way into landfills.

For the person recycling their phone, the obvious perk is getting money for their old phone. Recycling a mobile phone, however, is good for everyone involved. Recycled mobile phones can be used in many ways—they can be refurbished, used for parts, or donated to various charities that will re-purpose them to help their constituencies. Shelters, for example, can give old phones to their clients to use in emergencies or to be able to stay in touch with social workers.

Mobile phone recycling sites can help you to find the best way to recycle your phone and by using a comparison service like Sell My Old Mobile Phone you can be sure that you are getting the best price from a reputable phone recycling source.

Top 6 Reasons to Recycle your Mobile Phone

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1. Because you get paid!  You can sell your old mobile phone for cash or vouchers.  Even broken phones can earn you some money.
2. Because it's good for the planet.  It reduces the amount of rubbish going into landfills.  Mobile phones contain poisonous elements such as lead, cadmium and beryllium that can damage wildlife and harm our health, so the fewer that enter landfills the better.
3. It helps other people too.  Often, mobile phones that are sold to recycling companies are sent to poorer countries, they are a vital link for people who've never had a phone before.
4. To make a mobile phone uses up the equivalent energy of almost 40 gallons of petrol, so the more mobile phones that can be recycled the more we can conserve our dwindling energy resources.
5. The mobile phone manufacturing industry generates over 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.  That's an enormous carbon footprint that would be reduced if we could recycle phones a little more.
6. Mobile phones contain metals such as gold, platinum and palladium.  Although these are only in small quantities, it's estimated that there are around 80 million phones lying around, unused.  That's a lot of precious metals that can be recycled, reducing the impact of mining for these metals on our environment.

See the full Top 6 Reasons to Recycle your Mobile Phone article.

The Story Behind Sell My Old Mobile Phone

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Like most web sites,this one started with a good idea.

"Wouldn't it be great if I could compare prices of all of the mobile phone recycling companies, without having to go to each one in turn?"

And so we started work on the Sell My Old Mobile Phone web site. That was in 2004... not really! It was in the summer of 2010.

We began by collecting a data feed of prices from the major mobile phone retailers.  We got that in the morning.  We thought by the afternoon we'd have a nice, clean database that we could use for the price comparison.  Oh no.  Not even close.  Would you believe how many ways you can write "Apple iPhone"?  We saw "apple Iphone", "Apple I-Phone", "Appleiphone" and many more.  And don't even get me started on how many ways you can write "Apple iPhone 3Gs 16Gb".  We had to map them all, so no matter what the idiosyncracies of the feeds, our customers could compare them all side by side.

Along the way we had some more good ideas.

"Now that were're storing all of this data, why don't we keep a record so people can see what their phone was worth last week, last month, last year." 

So we did.  If you look at any phone page (for example the comparison of prices you'll get for recycling our friend the Apple iPhone 3GS 16Gb you'll see at the bottom how the prices have changed since we began collecting the data (around the start of October.  As you can see, iPhones seem to hold their value pretty well.

And then we thought

"Why don't we let site users write reviews of mobile phone recyclers?  Then if they have a really good (or really bad) experience, they can let everyone else know about it?"

So we did that too.  You can write reviews of any of the mobile phone recyclers on the site.

And now the site is live we're sure to have more good ideas, but we're also hoping that you will too.  Please email info@sellmyoldmobilephone.co.uk, or send your feedback via the little box that appears in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

Graham Miller
Sell My Old Mobile Phone