Used mobile phones can be sold for cash

Did you know that instead of throwing away your old mobile phone, you can instead get it recycled - and get paid for doing so?

Mobile phones are incredibly intricate devices, and it’s not just the electronics and screen that keeps them valuable - it’s issues such as camera and video functionality as well.

Unlike a lot of other electrical products, though, mobile phones are incredibly common, making it easier to set up wholesale recycling of them, and even reward people who do recycle.

There are a number of places online that allow for used mobile phones to be sold for cash for recycling, such as Mobile Phone Exchange, and a number of smaller sites.

Trading in your used mobile phones for recycling is pretty easy - just search for your phone model, see how much it’s worth, then sign up through the website to get your mobile picked up and the payment sent directly to your bank account.

A number of the big mobile operators already support such schemes, and companies such as Vodafone actively endorse the re-use of old mobile phones to reduce waste.

According to Fion MacCloud at green living site Fair Home, recycling of mobile phones is relatively unique because of the cash back element.

“Most recycling and reuse schemes depend entirely on the good will of the person providing used goods for recycling,” says Fion. “There’s no cash incentive, just a sense of trying to do something right. Re-use of mobile phones is different because it actually provides a cash incentive to recycle, which is great. It applies a positive principle of profiting from recycling.”

In the meantime, we can only hope that the idea carries onto other products, to give recycling other products a boost.

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