Recycle your cell phone

The upcoming week is National Cell Phone Recycling Week, according to the EPA. Their goal is to raise awareness about cell phone recycling and prevent about 90 million unwanted cell phones from entering landfills every year, according to this article.

They are cooperating with cellular manufacturers and retailers to get information out to the public. Most of these companies have programs to recycle your old phone and information is readily available from those companies.

Cell phones contain a number of materials--copper, precious metals and plastics--that have a high carbon footprint to produce. Using materials from recycled cellphones has the potential to reduce the energy used in production by enough to power 18,500 homes for a year.