Why recycling mobile phones is beneficial to the planet

Many people have chosen in the past to sell a mobile phone privately, however, because of the speed that mobile technology on phone handsets is introduced to the market most older mobile phones are not as desirable as they once were. On top of this, most people with a contract mobile phone will automatically qualify for a new and improved upgrade so choosing to recycle mobile phones is now a much better option.In the last 3 years, it has been calculated that 15 million handsets which could be sold as phones for cash were actually discarded in the UK each year. In recent years only 4% of people have chosen to recycle mobile phones, which is not a lot considering the benefits of selling phones for cash and the hazardous environmental consequences of not doing so.In the UK alone it is considered that there are around 45 million mobile phone users and a further 1.25 billion users of mobile phones globally with steadily rising figures. In Europe, it is estimated that 58 million mobile phones are purchased annually which means that there are around 85 million mobile handsets which could be sold as phones for cash discarded in people's homes