Before we delve into how we can recycle mobile phones and where they go after they have been recycled, it is worth taking a few seconds to ponder the positive green effect that the act of recycling has on the environment, both immediate and cumulatively over time. Consider your old mobile phone being tossed into the rubbish and ending up in a landfill site somewhere. Over time, the components in your phone will begin to allow dangerous and harmful chemicals to seep and pollute the air and soil of the surrounding area, making it dangerous for future generations.

Recycling Mobile Phones Keeps Them Out of the Landfill

So now we know why we should recycle and what benefit this will have but what about the phone itself? Before you recycle or sell your old mobile, you should make sure that all data and pictures etc has been deleted and removed from our old phone. Now if you are unsure on how to do this then just Google your make and model of phone along with ‘phone data removal’ and there are numerous guides and tools that will help you to easily remove the items from your form so it is back to ‘factory settings’.

Remember to Delete Personal Information

After this when your handset reaches a mobile phone recycling centre, the first step that the recyclers (such as Envirofone and Mazuma Mobile) do is to disassemble the basic components of the phone.  This usually comprises of the following parts, plastic, metals, casing (or housing) and memory. After this first stage the next step is to sort handsets, circuitboards, chargers, accessories and batteries into sorting bins for each of the components. As this is a recycling centre, even the boxes or packaging you send the phone in on will also be recycled!

The Nickel in the phone batteries are then processed and can be recycled into stainless steel with applications for home and industrial use. Recyclers can even extract the Cadmium and then make new batteries from the old ones. The Batteries also contain copper, which can also be recycled.

Mobile Phones Ready for Recycling

The circuit boards contain many precious metals such as silver and gold and lead and can be used in many different ways whilst preventing future mining operations from acquiring these metals from the earth and destroying habitat and wildlife.
The phone casings will also be recycled and used in a variety of ways such as plastic fencing around the home.
Now you know what happens to the mobile phones then why not consider recycling your old phone and help the environment as well as earning a bit of extra cash? For more information please visit recyclemobilephones.co.uk

RecycleMobilePhones.Co.Uk

This month’s post is simply a wonderful collection of solar panel installations in everyday homes. Hopefully one day in the not too distant future we will all have wind and solar power in our homes.

Number 1: A Wonderful French Home with a Huge Solar Array;

images from http://www.flickr.com/photos/trebosc/

French Home Solar Install 1

The Solar Panels Being Installed

The Finished Installation

Number 2: A Small But Super Green Home in L.A.:

images from http://www.flickr.com/photos/clownfish/

Before the Solar Installation

Solar Install Completed - 100% Solar Energy!

Number 3: A Self Sufficient Log Cabin – Solar Powered:

images from http://www.flickr.com/photos/44244119@N08/

Log Cabin Solar Panels

Log Cabin Solar Panels - Off The Grid

Number 4: A Green Wedge Potton House:

This wooden timber construction home by Potton is green through and through

images from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikehales/

Green Wedge Shaped Home with Solar Array

The Green Stripe is Very Fitting!

The Home Has a Solar Well for Extra Light

Number 5: Suburban Home With Solar Panels Cut to Fit:

Proof that solar panels can be designed into any roof line….

images from http://www.flickr.com/photos/silas216/

Solar Panels Cut to Fit

We hope you were inspired by our list of home solar installations, we tried to include different examples from normal homes to the more modern super eco designs.

Let’s all go solar!

I got a Sony portable reader system for Christmas, and I have to say, I love it! It is easy to download books on, easy to read (you can enlarge the print) and it’s lightweight.

Now that I own an e-reader, I started to wonder if it is eco-friendly to use one of these or better to buy the books. Here is what I found out…

The current book ordering system in the U.S. encourages bookstores to order more books than they could every really sell. This certainly increases the number of published copies but it also creates more returns. You not only have all the resources that go into producing the book, as in the printing , packaging , shipping and the paper (from trees), you also have the cost of shipping, gas and packaging to return it back to the publisher. For some Publishers, it isn’t worth the expense for the bookstores to return the books, so they have the store strip the covers and return only that for credit, they then throw away the rest of the book. That leaves about a third of the mass market paperbacks that are printed being dumped in a landfill without ever being read!

Here’s an excerpt from an article about reading on a computer vs. printing out an article to read it;

“The contrast is quite convincing, one-tenth of a pound of greenhouse gas emissions from reading the document on the computer, versus almost one-quarter of a pound of greenhouse gas emissions for printing it out!”

Another article lays out the environmental impact of reading a newspaper on a reader and reading the New York Times on an e-reader. Their conclusion;

“Reading the physical version of the NY Times for a year uses 7300 MJ of energy and emits 700 kg of CO2. Reading it on a Kindle uses 100 MJ energy and emits 10kg of CO2.”

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Our Christmas celebrations were very much green themed this year and I received numerous green gifts! One of my favorites is the Solio Classic-i solar charger battery which my wife bought me.

My Solio Classic-i Solar Charger Battery

The Solio Classic-i has an internal Lithium Ion 1650 mAh battery which can hold a charge for up to 1 year. It has three solar panels which fold out into a three blade design.
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Have you ever wondered whether you could track how efficient your driving style is? Well now you can! It was my birthday today and my beautiful wife bought me a Garmin 1350 GPS system, and I love it, partly because I always get lost here in Texas but also because it features Garmin Eco Route which calculates how “green” my driving is for each trip.

The idea behind the technology is that the Garmin GPS unit can track how fast you accelerate / decelerate and how fast you are driving, how much fuel you have used based on your vehicle MPG rating and then it can give you feedback on how efficient your driving style is…

Garmin Eco Route

The whole idea behind the Garmin Eco Route is to promote a greener driving style and actually give the driver constant feedback on how efficiently they are driving…

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The University of Hunan, China, has developed a new type of environmentally friendly residential building, a house whose sub-structure is made entirely from bamboo! Using a new product called “GluBam®” the Hunan University, Institute of Modern Bamboo and Wood Composite Structure Team worked in conjunction with the Changsha Bamboo Kaisen co-operation to build a wonderfully eco-friendly home made entirely from sustainable bamboo.

Bamboo Timber House Built With GluBam®

Hunan University is located in Changsha which is the Capital of the Hunan Province, the university dates back to the Yuelu Academy which was founded in 976 A.D. making it one of the oldest higher education institutions in the world! So it’s no surprise that they have managed to come up with such an innovative solution to building green.
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As I was sat at yet another red light on my way home last night I noticed that the annoying red light was alot brighter than usual, and it seemed to be made of lots of tiny lights instead of the usual single bulb… I remembered seeing some stories about new traffic lights which use light emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of power hungry incandescent bulbs and the one I saw looked liked a group of LEDs.

Once I realized that the red light stopping me from getting home was in fact a new super efficient traffic LED light system I suddenly didn’t mind staring at a red light!

I Love Traffic LED Lights - Red but Green!

This new breed traffic lights is made from groups of LEDs which are literally electric diodes that produce light! They are extremely energy efficient and have a very long life. LEDs are very small (smaller than your little finger tip) so in order to get the required brightness for a street light there have to be lots of them grouped closely together. The old incandescent traffic lights were typically 50 – 150 Watts which means they consumed alot of electricity! There are numerous advantages to using LED traffic lights including;
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