Mobile Phone Recycling isn’t very widespread in Japan at the moment.
According to research carried out in Japan a few years ago the two reasons behind this reluctance are both to do with the constant improving of mobile phones. One reason stated is that people are using their old phones as digital cameras once they’ve upgraded their phone. The second reason is that people are concerned that newer phones may fall into the wrong hands after being discarded and as a result their personal data stored on the phone may fall into the wrong hands.
The main service provider in Japan, NTT DoComo Inc, conducted a pilot project early this year to test how effective the mobile phone recycling process is. The company collected old phones, sorted and disassembled them and assessed the components for usefulness.
Gold and silver slag were extracted from the metal components and oil was extracted from the plastic outer cases. The aim of the pilot scheme was to reuse components and improve recyclable materials through chemical processing, thereby establishing a closed-loop recycling system when recycling old phones.
Let’s hope that this pilot scheme will lead to more mobile phone recycling in Japan.