Wales to host the largest mobile phone recycling plant in Europe
September 19, 2007 at 9:27 am
The future is coming to Wales in the shape of mobile phone recycling. A company called Excel Fortune Holdings have recently announced their plans to build the largest mobile phone recycling plant in Europe in the valleys of South Wales. The site is 120,000 square feet of former furniture factory space and the region will drastically be affected by the building, creating at least 250 new jobs and putting them on the map in terms of recycling across Europe.
An estimated £6 million has already been put forward towards the venture and it is hoped the facility will be able to recycle up to 500,000 mobile handsets each month and generate turnover of £15 million. Excel is fronted by Chief Executive Mike Bandeira, formally of BT and ntl, and he commented: “We will offer a complete end-to-end solution for the collection, recycle, re-use and distribution of phones… With Europe currently contributing around 125 million phones per year to a growing stockpile of unused goods, the need to convert them into reusable stock has become increasingly urgent.”
The project has also been part-funded by the Welsh Assembly and is certainly a very good indicator to the rest of Europe that Britain, and particularly Wales, is more than doing its bit for recycling. It is estimated that, in recent years, 110 million handsets were in circulation as more and more users demand the latest model.However, from an estimated 20 million newly used handsets per year, only 5 million are being recycled.
Excel hopes to improve on that statistic, with up to 95% of handsets being recycled when the facility is fully operational. The handsets are collected and then sold to developing countries such as India, Pakistan, Dubai, Bolivia and even China, where they were probably originally assembled. The condition, age and model type will measure how much money people could receive for donating their old handsets but often the money from the return will be given to charity.
The facility has been officially announced to the press, and to the local area around south Wales, but an official national TV advertising campaign will go out later in 2007 encouraging people to consider recycling their mobiles. Excel also plan to position collection points in stores of various leading supermarkets and high street shops by the end of 2007.
I think mobile phone recycling is a great idea and it’s refreshing to see that money is being spent on this area of recycling rather than settling for landfill. I saw a few good websites last week which actually give you money for your old mobile phones. I managed to make around £68 just by sending in two old phones i had laying around the house a couple of weeks ago with mopay.co.uk. There are others out there such as envirofone and mazuma, but i got a better rate on Mopay – defo worth a try! Recycling is the way forward