In Canada, wireless phone subscribers numbered 19.3 million at the end of September, according to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. On average, the devices get replaced every 18 months, according to Industry Canada figures from 2006. (Paul Sancya/Associated Press)

It’s easy to understand how donating time or money could help a charity with its cause. But why are some organizations asking for your broken, obsolete cellphone?

As it turns out, there's money to be made in old handsets — at least for now.

The amount of copper and other commodities — such as steel, aluminum and gold — recovered when phones are recycled usually pays for the process and generates a little extra cash. And if the handset still works, refurbishing and reselling it can also be a profitable venture that keeps it out of a landfill.

Mining cellphones

A U.S. Geological Survey report released last year examined the value of the metals that could be recovered from cellphones.

The fact sheet, "Recycled Cell Phones — A Treasure Trove of Valuable Metals," calculated the approximate amount of copper, silver, gold, palladium, and platinum in handsets — not including batteries or chargers — thought to be in use in 2004, and retired or in storage in 2005, in the U.S.

The estimated 810 million cellphones in circulation in the United States contain about 13,227 tonnes of these five metals — worth more than $980 million US on today's market.

Based on current commodity prices, the handsets would contain a combined total of approximately:

• 12,900 tonnes of copper, worth $83 million US
• 288.1 tonnes of silver, worth $133.8 million US
• 27.1 tonnes of gold, worth $695.8 million US
• 12.1 tonnes of palladium, worth $137.7 million US
• 0.28 tonnes of platinum, worth $13.2 million US

"When large numbers of cellphones become obsolete, large quantities of valuable metals end up either in storage or in landfills," the document concludes.

"The amount of metals potentially recoverable would make a significant addition to total metals recovered from recycling in the United States, and would supplement virgin metals derived from mining."

Because of this, charities and other community groups can turn cellphone donations into cash through organizations such as the Charitable Recycling Program of Canada.

The initiative, an offshoot of The Wireless Source — a company that sells refurbished handsets — pays about a dollar per cellphone regardless of its condition. It then either recycles or reuses the phone, according to Gordon Weis, founder of the Canadian arm of the business.

The profitability of handset recycling is unique. It costs money to keep most other types of electronic waste, such as old computers, out of landfills. Resources recovered from those kinds of machines don't cover the price of recycling, says Cindy Coutts, director of the SIMS Recycling Solutions plant in Brampton, Ont.

There will likely always be a market for cellphones that can be refurbished and remarketed. However, Coutts says the recycling market for the materials reclaimed from cellphones is bound to go bust before too much longer, because cellphone models will continue to shrink until they don’t contain enough metal for recycling to be profitable.

"This is ultimately a good thing for society, because manufacturers are consuming less resources," Coutts said.

"But what that means as a recycler is that we get to a point where … we have to charge a fee."

Once there's a price tag on going green, Coutts says, discarded cellphones could face the same fate other non-profitable waste electrical and electronic equipment, or WEEE, has in the past — a one-way ticket to countries with fewer waste-disposal regulations and laxer labour laws.

A path already travelled

The miniaturization of cellphones follows a pattern similar to that of other high-tech gear. There used to be money in recycling various types of electronic waste, according to Coutts.

"Fifteen years ago, manufacturers made products that were bigger, bulkier, and contained more resources. Plating technologies for circuit boards were much different than they were now," she said.

"As a consequence, the value of the metals in electronics was a lot higher than it is today."

But once those other devices, such as computers, became a financial liability when they were used up, companies started cutting corners by shipping them off to foreign countries in crates instead of footing the recycling bill, Coutts says. It's what she fears could be in store for cellphones in the coming years, as the amount of material that can be profitably reclaimed from them shrinks.

The amount of copper and other commodities — such as steel, aluminum and gold — recovered when phones are recycled usually pays for the process and generates a little extra cash for the recycler. (Paul Sancya/Associated Press)

WEEE goes from North America to foreign countries "because the freight is relatively cheap, and environmental regulations, if they exist, aren't very well enforced," she said.

"When they get there, it's very unlikely that they're handled in an environmentally sound manner."

North America's cast-off gadgets can cause environmental headaches for local people in areas where they end up getting dumped. In 2005, for example, the Basel Action Network, or BAN, an advocacy group focused on banning toxic waste trade worldwide, released two papers on electronic waste dumping in Africa and Asia. The organization, based in the United States, reported that local experts in Lagos, Nigeria, estimated 75 per cent of the old electronic equipment shipped to the city from North America and Europe was "junk" and not economically repairable or marketable.

Consequently, three-quarters of the contents of about 500 12-metre containers destined for "reuse and repair" that arrived every month didn't end up getting refurbished and put back on the market, the report found. Instead, the items that contained toxic wastes were dumped and burned near residences, roadways and waterways, sending potentially harmful chemicals into the local environment, according to BAN.

In a separate piece, the group also reported large quantities of WEEE being exported to China, Pakistan and India, and being processed in operations "extremely harmful to human health and the environment."

The article reported that an area about a four-hour drive northeast of Hong Kong, where approximately 100,000 workers were paid to break apart and process obsolete computers imported primarily from North America, was using "19th century technologies to clean up the wastes from the 21st century."

Strength in numbers

Handsets are much smaller than computers, so they generate less waste per unit. But the growing number of cellphone users, combined with a high device turnover rate, means the number of discarded mobile phones is on the rise worldwide.

The United Nations estimates about two billion people will be using cellphones by next year. In Canada, wireless phone subscribers numbered 19.3 million at the end of September, according to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association.

On average, the devices get replaced every 18 months, according to Industry Canada figures from 2006. A report by the United States Geological Survey puts the average weight of a handset — without a battery or charger — at 113 grams in 2005.

These numbers indicate that more than 1,450 tonnes of WEEE is generated in Canada from cellphones alone each year. And in 2002, less than five per cent of discarded handsets were recycled, according to data from Environment Canada.

Who will pick up the phone?

The question is, when cellphones become so small that eco-friendly disposal doesn't generate any cash, will they still make it to the smelters?

A few provinces in Canada — Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan — have introduced WEEE recycling initiatives. Other provinces, such as Ontario, are planning to introduce policies to manage electronic waste in the next few years.

But the only province to specifically include cellphones in its tentative "to do" list of electronic waste is Nova Scotia, according to Duncan Bury, with the environmental stewardship branch of Environment Canada.

Bury says the reason cellphones aren't a priority is that the programs have to "walk before they run," and choosing to first tackle the eco-friendly disposal of TVs and computers, which he estimates constitute up to 60 per cent of electronic waste in Canada, just makes sense.

"Everybody recognizes that the list of electronic waste is much bigger than just computers and TVs," Bury said.

"But the first priority is to manage … the two really big chunks."

Since cellphones are recycled using the same basic technologies, Bury says regulatory bodies should be able to tack them on to their to-do lists later on.

Both present and planned WEEE management programs are going into effect far too late to significantly improve recycling rates by 2010, according to stipulations outlined in a report prepared for Environment Canada in 2003. The document said that a comprehensive national recovery effort would have to happen by 2004 to hit the "scenario B" target — recycling 66 per cent of Canada's WEEE.

Instead, Bury says, "we're still very much in scenario A" — otherwise known as the status quo — meaning electronic waste recycling rates in Canada are still around 12 to 17 per cent, where they were in 2002, according to the report.

Coutts says electronic waste regulations still need to be implemented in most of Canada and the U.S. to increase recycling rates and help keep cellphones out of landfills in North America and abroad once the metal recovery business for the devices becomes unprofitable.

"To handle the majority of electronic waste in an environmentally sound way means that there's a fee involved.… The cellphone is rapidly moving towards that category of material," she said.

"We have to be very aware of this trend, because when that happens, organizations are going to be tempted to take shortcuts."