Did You Know?

Only 1 in 10 cell phones is recycled each year, and that means valuable—and toxic— materials like copper, plastics and heavy metals are being burned in trash incinerators or buried in landfills. Toxic materials are getting into our air and water. Cell phone recycling and wireless recycling programs keep valuable materials out of landfills, including an estimated $630,000 of precious metals from circuit boards, and enough copper from phone chargers to recover the Statue of Liberty, twice! According to the EPA, if Americans recycled the 100 million cell phones that are no longer being used, enough energy would be saved to power more than 18,500 homes for a year.