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Collective Good

Donate your old cell phone to EARTHWORKS:
Support our work and help keep toxic metals out of the environment!

Collective Good
Collective Good

The human health and environmental impacts of cell phone waste disposed in landfills or incinerated is grim.  The EPA classifies cellular phones as hazardous waste, due to their content of lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic.  If thrown in the trash, and sent to incinerators and landfills, environmental contamination can occur from combustion and leaching into soil and groundwater. 

Here are some alarming facts about cell phones you might not know:

  • The EPA estimates cell phones will be thrown away at a rate of 130 million a year by 2005 that equals 65,000 tons of waste containing toxic metals!
     
  • There are more than 500 million used cell phones in the U.S. sitting in peoples drawers or in our landfills, and another 125 million will be added this year alone!

EARTHWORKS has teamed up with Collective Good to either refurbish or recycle your old cell phones.  Proceeds from the collected phones will be used by  EARTHWORKS to support communities impacted by mining.  Phones that can not be reused will be recycled for their metals and plastics in compliance with U.S. laws and regulations.

 How do I donate my used cellular phone?

+  Mail it to EARTHWORKS on our dime:

  • affix it to a package containing your old cell phone,
  • and mail.  EARTHWORKS pays postage automatically. 

When we receive the phone, EARTHWORKS will recycle the phone through Collective Good.

+  or mail it to us yourself:

EARTHWORKS Cell Phone Recycling
1612  K Street NW #808
Washington DC 20006

** Donated phones are tax-deductible as an in-kind donation

Community Voices

Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan

In 1998 a truck from the Kumtor gold mine crashed through a bridge spilling 1.7 tons of sodium cyanide and posioning 2,500 people.