Don’t throw away those cell phones

If you’re thinking of replacing your old cell phone with a new one, throwing it away should never be an option. Here’s why:

Cell phones and other electronic waste like TV sets, CRT monitors contain extremely toxic heavy metals and chemicals in batteries, circuit boards, and casing. Once landfilled, poisonous chemicals from mobile phones like lead, cadmium, mercury, polyvinyl chhloride (pvc),brominated flame retardants (BFRs), etc. can potentially contaminate nearby water sources and surrounding soil.

How dangerous are these chemicals and metals?

Lead

Lead, found in cellular phone batteries and old computer monitors, is a poisonous metal that can damage nervous connections (especially in young children) and cause blood and brain disorders. Long term exposure to lead or its salts (especially soluble salts or the strong oxidant PbO2) can result to complications like kidney damage, reduced IQ, slowed body growth, abdominal pain, and permanent mental damage.

According to Dr. Anne Marie Helmenstine, author and leading authority in biomedical sciences, lead has been found to cause development problems in children and diminishes brain functions even in adults. In a recent publication, Dr. Kim Dietrich from the University of Cincinnati, has associated lead exposure during childhood to deviant criminal behavior in adults. According to Dr.Dietrich’s report, their findings “implicate early exposure to lead as a risk factor for behaviors leading to criminal arrest.”

Compared to a TV set or an old CRT monitor, many of which can contain as much as 5 lbs. of lead, mobile phones contain only traces of this dangerous metal. However, because of the sheer number of cell phones that get dumped in landfills each year, the problem has increased exponentially – the 500 million cell phones now rotting in our landfills could potentially leak more than 300,000 lbs. of lead into the surrounding soil and water systems.

Mercury

Found in cellular phone batteries, mercury is a toxic chemical that affects the immune system, alters genetic and enzyme systems, and damages the nervous system, including coordination and the senses of touch, taste, and sight. Developing embryos – babies in their mothers’ wombs – are particularly vulnerable, being 5 to 10 times more sensitive to the effects of mercury than adults.

\”Mercury in any form is toxic,” according to Dr. Barry M. Diner of Emory University. “Neurologic, gastrointestinal, and renal systems are the most commonly affected organ systems in mercury exposure.”

Cadmium
The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has determined cadmium and cadmium compounds to be human carcinogens. Found in cellular phone batteries, exposure to cadmium can also lead to decrease in bone density, lung damage, and kidney problems.

Toxic Flame Retardants

Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR) and decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE) are among the most widely used chemicals in the electronics industry providing coating for cell phone casing, etc. Numerous studies have shown the adverse health and environmental impacts of these chemicals – being possible carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. EPA recently announced that beginning in 2013, the US will “will end production, use, and sales of the chemical in the United States.” Still, millions have cell phones coated with these chemicals are already out there, endangering everyone’s health.

Many of our municipal and city landfills today are engineered to prevent harmful chemicals generated by solid waste from spilling or reaching the surrounding areas and water systems. But no system is foolproof, and landfill chemicals will always have the lethal potential to contaminate our water and agricultural lands where food crops are grown. This year, The New York Times reported that 90% of all fish harvested in our lakes and rivers contain dangerous amounts of mercury. Where do you think does that come from?

Recycle cell phones

Clearly, the only viable option – if we want to protect the environment and our health – is to recycle cell phones. Mobile phone recycling will not only prevent those highly-toxic chemicals from ever reaching our landfills, it will make sure that useful metals found in cellular phones like gold, silver, coltan etc. are kept in the production stream. This lowers the demand for fresh raw material and decreases energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with producing or mining for new materials.

As the world now grapples with the environmental problems brought about by our excesses, we’re also gradually learning that there is really nothing that we do that does not affect the environment and – a little bit down the road – people. Those old phones that we’ve heedlessly thrown away will someday come back to haunt us through the food that we eat and the water that we drink.

The earth is not a receptacle for our cell phones and electronic waste, let’s recycle cell phones today.

Michael Arms writes about cell phone recycling and toxic chemicals and other topics at the Pacebutler Recycling and Environmental Blog. You can sell, recycle, or donate cell phones through Pacebutler Corporation, an Oklahoma-based cell phone refurbishing and trading company.

Here are what’s available and what’s possible in 2009. Enjoy.

Samsung’s Blue Earth

Samsung’s innovative Blue Earth phone is the first solar powered full-touch phone. Engineered to resemble a a flat and well rounded shiny pebble, Blue Earth is made of PCM recycled plastic and is free from toxic materials like BFR and phthalate. It boasts of energy-efficient user interface and charger and has a built-in pedometer that can indicate the amount of CO2 emissions the user has reduced by walking.

Magic Stone
The Magic Stone is still on paper but it promises to be a most fascinating piece of technology ever invented. For one, users can specify their preferred shape of the device when they order the phones online. Powered by electromagnetic charge emitted from remote transmitters, Magic Stone will never need recharging. As backup, it is coated with nano-material capable of converting sunlight into energy. It boasts of a touch screen interface and built-in holographic projector.

LG Pop Cell Phone

Back in October, LG introduced the GD510 or POP, a cell phone that comes with an optional battery cover that is also a solar cell, allowing users to charge the battery with sunlight. You can have 2.25 minutes of talk time or 180 minutes of standby by charging your phone for 10 minutes under the sun. The Pop is crafted from brushed aluminum which gives it a high-end look, has no toxic materials like BFR and PVC, and comes in recycled packaging.

Mobile Script
The concept Mobile Script phone is definitely one of the best concept devices this year. Featuring dual touch screen displays, it boasts of a flexible and retractable OLED display that can become rigid when charged allowing the user maximum viewing space when needed. For power, it comes coated with photo sensitive coating using nano technology to harness solar energy.

Sony Ericsson Elm and Hazel

The Elm and Hazel Phones are the latest offering by Sony Ericsson in its GreenHeart portfolio. Compared to the other concept phones featured here, these have humbler eco-friendly credentials but I’m including them here because they’re real phones available for purchase and because they’re made from recycled plastic. The Elm and Hazel boasts of a highly efficient battery system, zero hazardous chemicals, and minimized packaging.

Zeri Concept Phone

My persona on Ikariam is Kwisatz Haderach (from Frank Herbert\’s Dune sci-fi books), so the Zeri green concept phone which features a top end that looks like the mouth of a worm of Arrakis is something special for me. This concept phone runs on a unique and original power source. The worm-like mouth is in fact, a mesh of knitted metal wires that detect and transform changes in temperature into energy while it is in your pocket. It can also convert air vibrations into usable power through hair-thin generators on piezoelectric system.

Xperia X001 Concept Phone

Created by Jozef Kocur, the X001 is the latest Xperia concept cell phone. This smartphone approaches the question of green power in a, well, smart way. Created from a solid piece of aluminum, this sleek eco-friendly phone combines the power of a solar cell and a methanol battery. The methanol case is transparent and provides a unique appearance to the front of the X001, while the solar panel can be seen at the back side.

Sticky Phone

Created by designer Liu Hsiang-Ling, the Sticky Phone concept is based on the idea that many users habitually place their phones near a window for optimum signal reception. This eco-friendly phone of the future has an arched back and is molded on polysiloxane (silicone). It can be attached to your glass panes where it can absorb solar energy via a solar panel at the back of the phone.

Touchwood Phone

The Touchwood is still in prototype stage and is made with the surplus wood of trees culled during thinning operations to maintain healthy forests. It boasts of an authentic cypress wood body, and developed by ITT Docomo of Japan in collaboration with Sharp Corporation, Olympus Corporation, and More Trees, a reforestation project founded by musician Ryuichi Sakamoto and others.

Magnet Phone

Designed by Tryi Yeh, the Magnet Phone concept is solar-powered – enabling the user to recharge the cell phone anytime, anywhere with renewable energy from the sun. Sporting a light OLED panel, the nifty device comes with a large solar panel cell and can be customized to suit the user\’s tastes. You can listen to your favorite music tracks, watch videos, and play games on the Magnet Phone without worrying much about charging this eco-friendly device.

Michael Arms writes about green cell phones and other topics for the Pacebutler Recycling and Environment blog. You can donate, recycle, or sell used cell phones to Pacebutler Corporation, a US mobile phone refurbishing and trading company

All mobile phones, when turned on, emit electromagnetic radiation in the microwave radio frequency range. It is this cell phone radiation, as it is absorbed by human tissue (most commonly in the head, as you place the phone next to your ear when you talk) that has come under intense scrutiny this past decade. Several epidemiological and experimental studies have associated prolonged cell phone use to sleeping disorder, cognitive problems, headaches, stress, brain tumors, and cancer.

On the other hand, studies with opposing results and observations have also been published. CTIA, the wireless industry\’s lobbying association pointed out to studies or statements from the World Health Organization (WHO), the American Cancer Society, and the FDA downplaying potential cell phone dangers, “all have concurred that wireless devices are not a public health risk.”

But, as Professor Devra Davis, at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute explains, “the latency between exposure and brain cancer could be 20 or 30 years” and by using cellular devices without any clear understanding of cell phone dangers, “we are basically treating ourselves like lab rats in an experiment without any controls”

The verdict is still out, obviously, but are you willing to take the risk?

Today, at the Consumer Electronics Show 2010 in Las Vegas, a company called Pong Research has announced the availability of a product called Pong™ BlackBerry Curve™ Case which claims to reduce users’ exposure to cell phone radiation by 60%. Until this product is introduced by other manufacturers to cover other brands and will be marketed widely, however, we all just have to take certain precautionary measures to protect ourselves from suspected cell phone dangers:

Keep your cell phone away from your body. The greatest exposure to cell phone radiation is when it is 6 inches or less from any body part.

Text more, talk less. Take only the most important calls or make the least amount of calls on your phone and transmit messages through SMS.

Use headset or speakerphone function. Cell phone radiation is emitted directly from a unit’s built-in antenna. Using a headset ensures that the actual cell phone is located away from your head, which can easily absorb EMF radiation.

Use your land line. It’s definitely safer to talk on the land line than on a cell phone, because this lessens your exposure to radiation.

Turn off your cell phone while charging. Not only will you charge your phone faster, it will also cut down on radiation emission from your cell to which everyone in your house or office is exposed to.

Purchase or use phones that have been certified or tested to emit the least amount of radiation. The Environmental Working Group has prepared an exhaustive list covering over 1,000 phones currently in the market, and they have come up with a list of the 10 best phones (with least radiation output) to use.

Keep cell phones away from children. Children’s skulls are thinner and their brains are less dense than adult brains, radio frequency signals can penetrate deeper into a child’s brain than in an adult\’s.

“There’s a greater concern for children because the life-time exposure will be much higher,” says Jane Houlihan of the Environmental Working Group. In the United States, as many as seven in ten children between the ages of 12 and 17 own a cellphone, and half use them daily, according to the New York Times.

At the moment, there is no conclusive, peer-reviewed evidence that points to cell phone dangers from radiation exposure. The science is evolving on this subject, but if we must err, it should be on the side of caution. When it comes to our health and those of our children, nothing should be left to chance, let’s always protect ourselves.

Michael Arms contributes articles on cell phone dangers and other mobile phone-related issues at the Pacebutler Recycling and Environment Blog. You can sell, recycle, or donate cell phones through Pacebutler Corporation, a US-based cellular phone trading and refurbishing company.

Droid is a play on the word “Android”. Android was the moniker used by Google to brand its mobile phone operating systems that it eventually licensed to manufacturers and cell phone carriers to use. But here are three simply reasons the Droid is going to dominate Android-based cell phones: hardware, interface usability, and network reliability and power.

First, the Droid is an joint venture with Verizon Wireless and cell phone manufacturing powerhouse Motorola. Though in recent months many cell phone service providers have upgraded their network service to third generation (3G) coverage, Verizon was the first to do so. Before AT&T began offering 3G coverage, lack of reliable service was one of the biggest reasons people were clinging to their Blackberry’s and Verizon’s excellent network speed and reliability. Plus, Verizon has announced it is hard at work in developing an even more impressive 4G network with the ability to squeeze more bandwidth into their service. This is great news because this means Verizon’s future 4G network can support streaming video – real video, not the choppy sometimes grainy video currently found when using AT&T’s network. And as Verizon boasts of its soon-to-be 4G network, they are already developing applications to be ready to use once their new network is launched. That sure beats the hum-hawing and knuckle dragging displayed recently by Apple with their inability to deftly manage their application store content. Recently Apple has been causing quite a ruckus with mobile phone application developers. One day they remove their applications for sale for obscure reasons and the next day they are back online for sale, for even more obscure reasons than before. Hmm, doesn’t seem like a way to nurture today’s most popular smart phone application gateway.

Besides, the iPhone doesn’t let you run applications in the background, change batteries, or host live widgets on the cell phone homepage. There is no open development for Apple’s smart phone operating platform – something Google is the kind of, open source technology and the transparency that techies are looking for today.

The biggest win for the Droid is the amazingly simple interface and strong hardware, surpassing even previously released “Android” phones. To illustrate the ease of the Droid interface, here are the steps to upload a video to YouTube:

1. Record video
2. Type title and description
3. Click “upload”

That easy. Seriously. Doesn’t get any easier than that. Plus you can zoom in and out right from the video screen on a handy on-screen icon. A touch screen that – imagine that, Apple.

Plus it syncs your Facebook contacts, its web page speed loading time rivals (if not crushes) the iPhone 3G capabilities, email works like real email, and the Microsoft Exchange compatibility is built-in. No more strange design elements that change dramatically from one type of application or software interface to another. Said someone working closely on the Droid before its release and hailed by many after its introduction: “The whole user interface feels slicker … feels like it was painted with the same brush.”

The days of iPhone vs. Blackberry might be over thanks to Verizon’s Droid smartphone. With the best of both worlds, the Verizon Droid is something behold.

Oh, and did I mention it has a slide-out physical keyboard? Enough said.

Visit TheMobilePhoneBooth.com to check out the Verizon Droid! While you’re there find great deals on mobile carriers and bargain rate cell phone plans. TheMobilePhoneBooth.com offers great deals on cell phone replacements, smart phone skins and protectors, and cell phone accessories. Find TheMobilePhoneBooth.com today!

Yes, that old or used cell phone that you’ve kept hidden in your drawer all this time is still extremely valuable to these charities and to the people and communities they serve. Here’s how you can put your old mobile phone to good use.

It’s really quite simple – when you donate cell phones to a charity or non-profit, the organization will issue you a receipt that you can use for tax deduction purposes in April. The non-profit will then sell that used phone to a mobile phone buyer online, like Pacebutler Corporation of Edmond, Oklahoma. You also have the alternative to go directly to the cellular phone buyer’s site online and donate cell phones through them to your preferred charity. The proceeds from that sale will help your non-profit raise much needed funds to support their beneficial work.

So, which charity or non-profit can you donate cell phones to? Here are a few options for you:

Boys and Girls Clubs of America

The Boys and Girls Clubs of America provides the young people in our cities and communities, usually left to their own devices by working parents, a place to grow and learn – while having fun. Their programs and services fully support the development of boys and girls by instilling in them sense of competence, usefulness, belonging, and influence.

Feed The Children

Based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Feed The Children has been working tirelessly for the past 30 years to deliver food, medicine, and clothing to children and families who lack these essentials due to famine, war, poverty, or natural disaster. In 2009, this international, nonprofit relief organization shipped 135 million pounds of food and other essentials to children and families in all 50 states and in 32 foreign countries.

American Cancer Society

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, the American Cancer Society operates over 3,400 local offices nationwide. This non-profit health organization is dedicated to the eradication of cancer as a major health problem, through prevention, rapid detection, and treatment. It works to lessen suffering from cancer through research, education, advocacy, and service.

Leukemia Society

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is the world’s largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research and providing education and patient services. The LLS mission: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. Since its founding in 1949, LLS has invested more than $600 million in research specifically targeting leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

Salvation Army

Founded in 1865, the Salvation Army has been relentlessly working to provide help and support to needy individuals and communities. This church-based charity organization maintains shelter assistance programs, feeding programs, senior citizen programs, social services, disaster services, youth programs, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, transportation, clothing assistance, Christmas cheer programs, and worship programs.

Soldiers’ Angels

Incorporated in Nevada in 2003, Soldiers’ Angels is a volunteer-based nonprofit organization with 30 different teams supporting all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. Working through special projects under the slogan “May no soldier go unloved,” volunteer teams and individuals supporting our troops, make a visible difference in the lives of our service members and their families.

Rock The Earth

Rock the Earth is a 501(c) non-profit organization, working closely with the music industry to promote awareness of environmental issues and to help defend threatened ecosystems and communities in the United States. They work to “represent those individuals and communities whose environment or natural surroundings are directly and adversely affected by others.”

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

By combining scientific research and patient care in one location, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is a health care non-profit organization that seeks to find cures for children with catastrophic diseases. The cutting-edge research and revolutionary discoveries by the gifted researchers at St. Jude’s have tremendously helped in treating not just suffering children in the United States but also in other countries.

Donate cell phones to your favorite charity or non-profit today. It’s not often that you can do good with something that no longer has any use to you. Donating your used or old cell phones today can do a great deal of good to the people that these organizations are helping.

You can [url=http://www.pacebutler.com/donate-cell-phones.cfm]donate cell phones[/url] to your preferred charity or non-profit organization, through Pacebutler Corporation, the leading buyer of used cell phones in the United States. You can also [url=http://www.pacebutler.com/recycle-phones.cfm]recycle phones[/url] with Pacebutler or sell them your used mobile phones. Michael Arms contributes articles about cell phone recycling and other topics at the Pacebutler Recycling blog.