OTTAWA – The country’s free cell phone recycling program Recycle My Cell is calling on Canadians to join in the Earth Day celebrations this Friday by making sure that all those old cell phones in their junk drawers are recycled responsibly.
According to the 2015 Understanding Cell Phone Recycling Behaviours survey released Wednesday, just under half of Canadians (48%) say that they have cell phones in their possession that are being stored. Overall, 45% of respondents had one phone in storage, while about a third (32%) had two in storage. Approximately one in five (22%) had three or more phones in storage.
Recycle My Cell offers more than 3,500 drop-off locations across the country. Canadians may visit the bilingual website and enter their postal code to locate the drop-off locations closest to them where their old wireless devices will be accepted, regardless of brand or condition. The site also offers printable postage-paid labels that can be used to mail the device back to Recycle My Cell at no cost to the consumer.
"The goal of the Recycle My Cell program has always been to keep old cell phones out of our landfills," said Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association president and CEO Bernard Lord, in the news release. "Earth Day is a perfect opportunity to think about how even the simplest of acts can have a very positive effect on preserving our environment."
Other key findings from the survey include:
– Support for cell phone recycling is extremely high, with 95% of Canadians either supporting or somewhat supporting the concept of recycling old, unused or unwanted phones;
– The majority of Canadians (81%) would be willing to recycle or return their old phone. This is a sizeable increase over the 63% who said the same in 2014;
– On average, Canadians used their previous cell phone for 33.6 months before they acquired their current phone. The average for Canadians aged 18 to 34 is lower (28.4 months) compared to older Canadians, who held onto their phones for longer than average (37.5 months);
– 670,701 wireless devices were recovered in 2015, and 6.42 million wireless devices have been recovered since 2005.
