Nokia is collaborating with the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG) to raise awareness on mobile recycling in the UAE.

Only 3 per cent of people recycle their mobile phones despite the fact that most have old devices lying around at home that they no longer want, according to a global consumer survey released by Nokia. Three out of every four people added that they don’t even think about recycling their devices and nearly half were unaware that it is even possible to do so.

The survey is based on interviews with 6,500 people in 13 countries including the UAE, Finland, Germany, Italy, Russia, Sweden, UK, USA, Nigeria, India, China, Indonesia and Brazil.

It was conducted to help Nokia find out more about consumers’ attitudes and behaviour towards recycling, and inform the company’s take-back programs and efforts to increase recycling rates of unused mobile devices.

In the UAE, around 65 per cent of people said that when thinking of recycling, they do not think about recycling their old and unwanted mobile phones, with the majority keeping them lying around at home. This can be attributed to awareness levels regarding mobile phone recycling, with 59 per cent admitting that they did not know that it is even possible to do so.

It is in this regard, Nokia and EEG are rolling out the Take Back Program to provide the community with the necessary information and to raise awareness on the opportunity to recycle old mobile devices and accessories. The initiative also falls in line with EEG’s other environment initiatives in the UAE that address the growing waste problem of the country and show best practices in resource conservation.

“Many people are simply unaware that these old and unused mobiles lying around in drawers can be recycled or how to do this. Nokia is working hard to make it easier, providing more information and expanding our global take-back programs,' said Mia Ranta-aho, senior environmental manager, at Nokia Middle East and Africa.

“Today, we are further strengthening our take-back capability in the UAE to cover all our service centers in the country.  If each of the three billion people globally owning mobiles brought back just one unused device we could save 240,000 tones of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gases to the same effect as taking four million cars off the road. By working together, small individual actions could add up to make a big difference,” she added.

“We would like to encourage the community to support this Take Back Initiative which we are launching today as a direct response to the e-waste challenge,” said Habiba Al Marashi, EEG chairperson.

“Using the best recycling technology nothing is wasted. Between 65–80 per cent of a Nokia device can be recycled. Plastics that can’t be recycled are burnt to provide energy for the recycling process, and other materials are ground up into chips and used as construction materials or for building roads. In this way nothing has to go to landfill,” added Mia Ranta-aho.-TradeArabia News Service