JEDDAH: By donating your unwanted mobile phone you’ll prevent highly toxic materials ending up in a landfill. This was the message given by Nokia at the launch of an awareness campaign for mobile phone recycling here on Monday.

Only three percent of people, according to a global consumer survey conducted by Nokia, recycle their mobile phones worldwide despite the fact that most have old devices that they no longer want lying around at home.

“In this part of the world, there is a need to raise mobile recycling awareness and hence the campaign,” said Hani Ghibeh, care manager of Nokia for Saudi Arabia and Yemen, while giving details of the survey at a media conference.

In fact, not only can mobile phones be reused, they can also be recycled for valuable parts like touch screens, or the plastic casing which contains the phone. Not only do these phones have monetary value, but also keeping them out of landfills has become a top priority as phone batteries often leak harmful chemicals into the soil that can eventually contaminate drinking water. It is a fact that much of the public is still uneducated when it comes to the recycling of mobile phones. A high percentage of those polled were not sure how to recycle a phone and others were unaware that it was even an option.

The survey, based on interviews with 6,500 people in 13 countries, was conducted to help Nokia find out more about consumers’ attitudes and behaviors toward recycling, and inform the company’s take-back programs and efforts to increase recycling rates of unused mobile devices. Three out of every four people said they did not even think of recycling their devices and nearly half were unaware that it was even possible to do so.

“It is in this regard, Nokia, in collaboration with the Presidency of Meteorology & Environmental Protection (PME), is rolling out the Take Back Program in Saudi Arabia to provide the community with the necessary information and raise awareness on the opportunity to recycle old mobile devices and accessories,” Ghibeh said.

“It is clear from our survey that when mobile devices finally reach the end of their lives very few of them are recycled. Many people are simply unaware that these old and unused mobiles lying around in drawers can be recycled or how to do this. Nokia is working hard to make it easier, providing more information and expanding its global take-back programs,” he said.

“If each of the three billion people globally owning mobiles brought back just one unused device, we could save 240,000 tons of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gases to the same effect as taking four million cars off the road. By working together, small individual action could add up to make a big difference,” Ghibeh added.

Nokia has its mobile phone recycling plant at its home base in Finland. More than 5,000 collection centers from 85 countries are sending their mobile phones to the plant. Up to 80 percent of the mobile phone’s recycled parts made of copper, aluminum, plastic, etc., can be reutilized in manufacturing processes.

“This way, 240,000 ton raw materials could be saved,” Ghibeh said, adding that Nokia has 40 collection centers across the Kingdom, aside from eight Nokia Care Centers, where consumers can drop their old and unwanted devices, chargers and mobile accessories.

“This is the first step of our program and we are currently exploring opportunities to establish more take back points in the Kingdom,” Ghibeh said.

Commenting on the mobile recycling initiative, Sameer Ghazi, deputy president for environmental affairs at the PME, said: “We encourage the civil societies and private sectors to take environmental initiatives by highlighting the important role that they can play in the Kingdom and the region to overcome the local and regional environmental challenges in the fields of energy and the environment conservation.”