Do you recycle your old prepaid handsets?

The survey included 1,000 people, so 62 percent means about 620 people. Of those, 98 percent said they would only recycle a phone if it meant compensation. A cell phone, after all, is not a bottle or a can. It’s not something we consume on a daily basis. It’s an electronic device, and no matter how obsolete the technology is, people sometimes have a hard time parting with such a commodity for free. This seems to be the case with cell phones. Of the 38 percent who did recycle, only 5 percent did so without compensation (such as dropping it off at a Best Buy location).

“The message is clear,” comments ABI Research industry analyst Michael Morgan. “Many consumers in the US are prepared to help the environment by recycling their old handsets, but only if there is a financial incentive to do so. Virtue is not seen as its own reward in this case. Operators wishing to present a ‘green’ public face – and the survey’s results also show that consumers increasingly favor those that do – should factor these attitudes into their recycling schemes.”

I used to think that the problem with recycling electronic gadgets was that there was no easy way to do it. Some Best Buys had recycling bins, but other than that you had to proactively track down a program. I though that if it were more like bottle recycling — i.e., you can just drop it off at the curb — that more people would partake. I still think that’s true, but the survey suggests that people want to be compensated for the gadgets they paid good money to obtain, even if the transaction occurred years ago. So do you recycle your old prepaid handsets? If not, what do you do with them?]]>