M-Waste

Dec 04, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka's top celco Dialog Telekom wants to collect a million old phones and recycle them in the next two years in an initiative that will keep dangerous heavy metals from contaminating the environment, officials said. Phone batteries for example have heavy metals such a lead, nickel and cadmium. Dialog is collecting old phones and accessories from today.

"In Sri Lanka there are about 10 million mobile phones, and mobile phones become obsolete in two to three years," says Michael de Soyza from Dialog who heads the project.

"Though some are handed down to friends and siblings, eventually they are discarded and are disposed of through the garbage collection system."

Starting today, at 14 Dialog offices, old phones would be collected. For every phone handed over they need not be dialog phones the company will contribute 25 rupees to a fund to buy toys for needy children over the Christmas season.

For every piece of accessory 10 rupees would be contributed.

Dialog chief Hans Wijesuriya says the discarded 'm-waste' would be stored in a containment facility certified by Sri Lankan authority and shipped to a specialist recycler either in the UK or Singapore.

The firm wants to collect