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Recycle My Cell Phone
Frequently Asked Questions
What Happens to My Phone
What Can Be Recycled
Environmental Principles

Campaign Environmental Principles

The Recycle My Cell Phone campaign is committed to protecting the environment, safeguarding public health, and minimizing waste. EARTHWORKS will endeavor to ensure that all cell phones collected through the campaign will be recycled or reused in accordance with the following environmental guidelines:


  • Rock Creek Valley, MT.
    Site of a proposed silver-copper mine underneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. Photo: Doug Day
    Cell phones are recycled in accordance with the principles laid out in the Electronics Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship, the world's most rigorous environmental and social justice criteria for recycling E-waste.
  • Phones that are in good working order will be reused. If the phone is broken, but has useful parts, its working components will be used to create "new" phones. All other materials and batteries will be sent to partners who are EPA certified to properly dispose of these materials in a way that is not harmful to the environment.
  • When cell phones or their components are broken down for recycling, appropriate measures are in place to protect workers, the general public and the environment from dusts and emissions.
  • Hazardous cell phone waste will not be sent to solid waste landfills or incinerators.
  • Recycling will be consistent with the international Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, we will not engage with recyclers that export hazardous cell phone waste to developing countries.
  • We will not engage with recyclers that send cell phones to prisons for recycling.
  • We will make every effort to ensure that all discarded cell phones are sent to facilities (e.g. smelters), which provide the most efficient and least polluting recovery services available in the world.
  • We agree to work with recyclers who can provide tracking of hazardous cell phone waste throughout the product recycling chain, whereby the tracking information shows the final disposition of all hazardous waste materials.