Plant A Tree By Recycling Your Mobile
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Australians can assist thousands of native animals by supporting the Old Phones, More Trees campaign by MobileMuster and Landcare Australia by simply recycling any old mobile phones during the month of May and until World Environment Day – June 5.


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The ‘Old Phones, More Trees’ campaign, now in its third year, is a joint initiative, where native trees are planted for all mobile phones handed in for recycling throughout May and until World Environment Day.

Rose Read, Manager of Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association’s (AMTA) mobile phone recycling program, MobileMuster, encourages Australians of all ages to look into their drawers at home and at work, pull out old and unused mobile phones and hand them in for recycling.

“This year, MobileMuster and Landcare Australia have chosen to support Koaladoors Inc Koaladoors Project, as one of two projects, and plant native trees in the Framlingham Forest, which was affected by severe bush fires in January 2006.It is estimated that thousands of native animals which lived in the forest perished. Planting of the new trees will establish essential wildlife corridors, linking remnant bush land and providing easy escape routes for animals during fires,” said Ms Read.

MobileMuster can recover over 90% of the metals and plastic found in mobile phones and reuse to make new products such as jewellery, plastic fence posts and stainless steel products such as saucepans.

 

“Australians will not only be helping thousands of native wildlife by recycling their old mobile phones, but will also be helping their local environment, as returning essential metals and plastics for reuse, will in turn help avoid future green house gases and conserve our natural resources,” added Ms Read.

Brian Scarsbrick, Landcare Australia CEO, says the campaign, now in its third year, have grown from strength to strength and looks forward to partnering with MobileMuster again.

“The ‘Old Phones, More Trees’ campaign have been a great success in the past two years, collecting over 100,000 mobile phones for recycling and resulting in the planting of over 175,000 native trees in degraded areas across Australia.

“By simply recycling their old mobile phones for free, Australians have assisted in the planting of native trees in the Manning Coast, Penrith, Liverpool Plains, Warnambool, Port Philip and Westernport, Innisfail, Goolwa and Wellington, Murrumbidgee regions,” said Mr Scarsbrick.

“I encourage everyone to play a part in the future of our local environment and wildlife and hand in their old mobile phones, batteries and accessories for recycling. Every mobile phone will count,” concluded Ms Read.

Old mobile phones, batteries, accessories and chargers can be recycled for free at any one of MobileMuster’s 3,500 drop-off points across Australia including Nokia Care and Motorola Service One Centres; mobile phone retailers Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, 3 Mobile, Virgin Mobile, Crazy Johns, Fone Zone, Allphones as well as participating local councils, Cartridge World stores and selected ANZ and Sydney Credit Union branches.

Alternatively, they can pick up a free recycling satchel from participating Australia Post outlets nationwide or by downloading a free reply paid label from www.mobilemuster.com.au.