Just what is my phone handset?

Your mobile phone has a battery with nickel and cadmium, a Liquid crystal display panel containing mercury, transmitters created from beryllium, a vibrator made from coltan, diodes that contains antimony, circuit board solder made out of lead, arsenic-based semiconductors, bromides to keep the unit from catching fire, and a shell made of PVC. Many of these chemical substances, when pulled apart and absorbed, are highly dangerous. Generally known as persistent bioaccumulative toxins (PBTs), the usa Epa claims that “PBTs tend to be linked with a variety of unfavorable human health effects, such as harm to the nervous system, reproductive system as well as developmental difficulties, tumors and genetic impacts.” Now, the majority of us do not plan on attempting to try to eat our mobiles, but picture this: five hundred million cell phones decomposing within a land fill, sloughing off particles of nickel, cadmium, mercury, lead, and all the rest in to the earth. These kind of volatile organic compounds drain down through the planet right until they get to the groundwater system, when they will feed in to our lakes, streams, rivers and drinking reservoirs. We employ that water to fish, to grow our vegetation, and to nourish our bodies. Fresh water is the priimary source of all life for this planet, so we are toxifying it by tossing phones en masse thoughtlessly in the trash. What's more, entire village economies in the under developed world survive on scrapped being melted down in the thousands for trace valuable metals. Fire causes toxins to get in the air and into the lungs of people that work with the phones.As you would expect, life-span in these villages is not very high. That’s Terrible! How Was This Allowed to Take place? Our lives are so rushed todaytt, and we do not have chance to think about where things we take for granted come from or are disposed of to. Every single day we are all surrounded by dangerous chemicals packaged withinin pvc, which itself is harmful if dissolved or broken down. Why would we question something so useful? We should continue to use our mobile phones, we need to educate ourselves about handset disposal. The health of the human race and of the planet is at stake. What Should We Do? It'sIt is vital that we recycle our mobile phones when we decide to upgrade as well as when they stop working. It is so easy to do, it will take, perhaps, five minutes longer than throwing it away. Recycling can take many forms, giving the handset to a friend, selling it, or putting it on ebay are three examples.

The Recycle Mobile site is the premier websites in the UK for if you are looking for information about recycling mobile phones. It has very technical details about the elements that make up a handset but also has some interesting ideas and novel ways of recycling, it even shows you ways to cash in using old phones you don’t use anymore.