There’s no better reminder than National Recycling Week (November 7-13) to inspire us to recycle all the disused electronic “stuff” languishing in our homes and garages. According to Mobile Muster there’s around 19 million old and broken mobile phones lying around Australian homes unused , and if you have one of them, now is the time to take them into a Telstra store to recycle or contact Mobile Muster to find out where you can collect a satchel and recycle by post.

To me, recycling comes as naturally as eating and sleeping – so I often get a little worked up when I hear that Australians are still throwing out things like mobile phones and old TVs.

According  to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, e-waste is one of the fastest growing types of waste in Australia. In 2007-08, 31.7 million new televisions, computers and computer products were sold in Australia. In the same year, 16.8 million items were thrown away and 88 per cent of those ended up in landfill.

In 2011, 7 million mobile phones were sold in Australia – with only 797,000 devices recycled. In fact, 78% of Australians chose to keep their old mobiles while 4% threw them out to landfill.

The good news is that the federal government has released draft regulations for a proposed national recycling program that aims to have 80 per cent of TVs, computers and computer parts recycled by 2021-22.

The other good news is that Mobile Muster, the official recycling program of the mobile phone industry since 1999 can recover over 90% of the materials in mobile phones during the recycling process.

• Batteries include nickel to make stainless steel and cobalt and cadmium to make new batteries.
• Circuit boards include small amounts of gold and silver that is used in jewellery and other applications.
• Handset housings and casings include plastics that are shredded and used to make fence posts and pallets.
• Accessories include plastics and metals that are shredded, sorted and then used to make new plastic or metal products.

If you’d like to help us turn the above statistics around, and encourage people to recycle here’s how you can go about it:

Round up your old mobile phones and hand them in at your nearest collection point click here.

Alternatively you can pick up a free recycling satchel at participating Australia Post outlets or download the reply paid mailing label.

If you’re interested in how you can properly dispose of your other e-waste like TVs or computers, check out recyclingnearyou.com.au for a list of councils that provide e-waste recycling or collection services.