France may have found the perfect way to deal with discarded phones
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Now, people can send their phones via mail to get it recycled and/or refurbished by a charity group to be later put on sale
Used and discarded phones have been a concern for environmentalists since phones became an intrinsic part of human lives.
Many opt for recycling, or simply exchanging their old phone for a new phone which also saves money.
Mail it in!
But France has come up with a solution of its kind. Now, people can send their phones via mail to get it recycled and/or refurbished by a charity group to be later put on sale.
According to AFP estimates, over 50 to 110 million phones are simply sitting in the France. Recycling still remains elusive to many, and fears of data theft loom large in today’s time.
The NGO - Ecosystem claims that anybody can ship their phones to them in a paid-for envelope which can be procured from their website. Additionally, they may print out a pre-paid label.
To encourage reuse
Once mailed, the phones are kept in a processing centre, and assessed. The pilot step is erasing its data before it fixed or moved for sale.
The phones are mostly sold at charity shops. However, the majority of the phones (over 83 percent) are first disassembled and then recycled. This is done to rid the device of all polluting articles.
As part of its redistribution scheme, the NGO will give away 100 refurbished phones during each of the 35 stages part of the 2020 Tour de France cycling race, which is set to begin on August 29.
Ecosystem collected over 62,000 tonnes of discarded material after people cleared their homes during the COVID-19 lockdown.
This move may encourage reusing old devices instead of simply discarding them, which produces a lot of waste.