Why Recycle Your Cell Phone?
Help the environment by recycling hazardous waste. Cell phones contain a number of hazardous substances that can seriously impact the environment. Donate your unwanted or used cell phone to the Houston Zoo and the Zoo will have it recycled ensuring that most of these cell phones and their accessories will be reused or properly disposed of.
Sending your unwanted cell phones to the Houston Zoo will also help provide funds that will benefit wildlife conservation at the Houston Zoo’s wildlife conservation efforts. The Houston Zoo works with recycling organizations that will accept these products and return funds to the zoo for the parts they are able to re-use in their products.
Help Wildlife in the Congo:
Why recycle your cell phone? First, it can help the environment by recycling hazardous waste but it also may help animals in the wild. Columbite-tantalite, or Coltan for short, is a dull metallic ore found in major quantities in the eastern areas of the African Congo. It is used in cell phones, laptops, pagers and other electronic devices. When refined, coltan becomes metallic tantalum, a heat resistant powder that can hold a high electrical charge. Some types of Coltan mining may occur illegally in protected lands all across the Congo which in turn put wildlife such as Elephants and Gorillas of the Congo region at risk. Eighty percent of the world’s known coltan supply is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There, it is mined by hand by groups of men digging basins in streams, scraping away dirt to get to the muddy coltan underneath. Recycling unused cell phones can help protect the wildlife, since reuse of the phones results in the need for fewer new ones, which reduces the need for coltan mining.
The Houston Zoo has a recycling bin in our Natural Selections Gift Shop for collection of unwanted cell phones, batteries, and chargers or they can be mailed to:
Houston Zoo Inc.
Cell Phone Recycle
1513 North MacGregor
Houston, TX 77030
The Houston Zoo is working with Eco-Cell and will donate 100% of the funds raised to support wildlife conservation programs through our Naturally Wild Conservation Program which currently oversees nearly two dozen wildlife and habitat conservation efforts in ten countries. Items collected will be sold, refurbished, or recycled. Damaged or obsolete phones will be safely recycled in accordance with all applicable environmental guidelines.
There are more than 150 million cell phone users in the United States alone. With technology changing, the average lifespan of a cell phone is 14 months. There may already be 500 million unused cell phones in the United States, with as many as 100 million added each year.
If your business or corporation would like to participate in the program, you may contact the Conservation Department at 713-533-6836 or conservation@houstonzoo.org
