Gov't promotes recycling of rare metals in cell phones
Thursday 04th June, 06:58 AM JST
TOKYO —
japantoday.com
The government on Wednesday kicked off a campaign to urge consumers to take their old cell phones to collection points with a view to recycling rare and precious metals used in them. The campaign, due to last until July 7, is being conducted under the auspices of the ministries of internal affairs and communications, environment and economy, trade and industry. The communications ministry aims to raise the recycling rate to 30% from the current 20%.
On Wednesday, Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Kunio Hatoyama and Environment Minister Tetsuo Saito appeared in a campaign event at an outlet of major consumer electronics store chain Bic Camera Inc in Yurakucho, a busy shopping district in central Tokyo. Similar events will be held elsewhere in Yokohama and Kyoto and phone collection boxes will be installed at their municipal offices, according to officials of the two cities.
Many consumers keep their old cell phones to use them as cameras even after buying new, higher-end handsets. There are also some who do not recycle their old phones for fear of having their personal information in the phones stolen.
As a result, the number of phones collected for recycling went down sharply to 6.44 million units in 2007 from 11.71 million units in 2003, according to an industry group.
In order to collect unused phones, the nation’s top cell phone carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc has set up collection boxes at convenience stores, as well as at its retail shops. KDDI Corp has its workers break apart old handsets manually because that is a more efficient way of extracting rare and precious metals.
Phone carriers incapacitate old phones in the customers’ presence in order to assure them that their personal information will not be restored. |
