These days most of us have at least one mobile phone, some of us have two or three, and we tend to upgrade our phones on a regular basis, which means that there are heaps of old phones left sitting around doing nothing.
According to a survey conducted by UK consumer group ‘Customer Focus’, 68 percent of people had at least one old mobile phone lying around that they no longer used. Some of course had even more.
Old mobile phones are worth cash and are actually in great demand as they can be fixed up and sent over to developing countries where both the mobile and the user can get a second life, or the parts can be recycled.
There are a number of charities and organisations that would be more than happy to give you cash for your old mobile and surely at a time when we’re all feeling the economic pinch, this extra dosh could come in quite handy so why aren’t we doing it?
Laziness perhaps, maybe ignorance, or are we too busy to bother popping the mobile into a bag to send it off?
The other problem of course when we upgrade our phones or buy a new one, is that many people just dump their phone in the bin where it will ultimately end up as landfill.
“We discard millions of phones every year with one in 10 admitting they simply put their old handsets in the bin. These are sophisticated bits of kit that can still be used or recycled,” said Hannah Bullivant of Consumer Focus.
Apparently as many as 85 million mobile phones have been dumped and on top of the damage that does to the environment, it also amounts to one heck of a lot of wasted cash.
“By throwing phones away, we are wasting huge amounts of money and adding unnecessarily to our landfill mountains” said the consumer group.
“Anyone with an old mobile should shop around for the best second-hand deal. There are now a number of second-hand price comparison sites that can be found with a simple internet search”
A word of warning though, if you do decide to hand over your mobile for cash then Customer Focus is reminding us to get rid of any personal information on the phone first.
Yes, these days it’s not only our mobiles that are valuable, our personal data is too.
