I tweeted to #wearefairphone about this a while ago but I guess many people missed it.
In the Netherlands you can get some money for old phones you may still have lying around the house. An increasing number of Albert Heijn supermarkets have special bins where you can deposit your old phone together with a form you have to fill in. You’ll get some money in return for your phone. More info can be found here: http://www.ah.nl/assortiment/techreturns
The company that’s behind this is TechReturns. You may have heard of these guys before.
They get all these second hand phones and they sell 'em again in developing countries, giving the phones a second life. But it doesn’t end there. There will also be phones that are really at the end of their life. Broken and busted or just too old to be used anymore. That’s why they’re involved with the Closing the Loop project, a name that should definitely be familiar to the true FairPhone owners They buy end-of-life phones in developing countries and recycle them in a responsible manner.
So if you want to get rid of your old phone in a responsible way, consider selling to TechReturns.
Here’s a fancy video explaining the process:
Oh by the way, I think TechReturns focuses on the Dutch consumer market mostly, and I’m not aware of any international initiatives like this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if TechReturns accepts phones from abroad as well. Haven’t looked into this though.
Great that you’re sharing this. You guys are always a step ahead because…
In just a few weeks, we will soon launch a Fairphoners’ Phone Take Back plan of our own (with a logistics partner). It will first be geared towards Fairphone owners, but we will also provide a list we’ve compiled of places that collect (or buy) old phones all across Europe. A sort of “old phone collectors” in your area.
More on this in the coming weeks from the Fairphone team!
What a great concept! Here, in Belgium, there are some shops (The Phone House, for example) who give discounts on your new phone if you bring in another, old one. After doing some research, I discovered that there are also some independent companies that collect used phones and pay you for it. The money you got varied from 10 to 80 euros.
Not sure if there are companies that really “recycle” or give second lives to phones. I’ll look into that
I only know, that the German “Post” offers a free of charge shipment for every electronic device, which you can easily print from the Internet and is stated to be 100 % CO2 emissions free. See: http://www.deutschepost.de/de/e/electroreturn.html
Maybe there are some companies, who participate there and will pay you for sending in your old devices.
You all may be interested in our latest (guest) blog post about collecting 75,000 scrap phones in Ghana for recycling. Kind of like the inverse of what we’re talking about but still in the area of recycling phones.
They buy end-of-life phones in developing countries and recycle them in a responsible manner.
because…