How would you describe your cell phone? Handy, cute, multi-functional, indispensable? What about environmentally harmful?

We don't often think about it, but both cell phones and the towers that transmit cell signals can have a negative impact on the environment.

MANUFACTURING

A cell phone is made up of 50% plastic, 15% copper, 15% glass or ceramics, and the remaining 20% a witch's brew of metallic elements. It can include cobalt, lithium, carbon, nickel, tin, zinc, silver, chromium, tantalum, cadmium, lead, antimony, gold, mercury and beryllium. Some of these metals (chromium, mercury, and lead) are highly toxic.

Plastic is made from petroleum, which is both a potentially harmful substance and a non-renewable resource. All of the metals in a cell phone have to be mined from the earth, often from open pit or strip mines.

If a phone is manufactured in a developed country, the potentially harmful elements are kept in a closed manufacture cycle, in which wastes are recaptured and refined for reuse. Most phones, however, are assembled in low-wage nations, where health and environmental protection laws and enforcement can vary. Assembly workers are often exposed to toxins, and the factory may also release dangerous compounds into the air, ground, and water, endangering everyone in the neighborhood.

END-OF-LIFE

Once a cell phone is obsolete, out of fashion, or has taken one too many dips in the toilet, disposal becomes an issue. Most phones simply end up in a landfill. There, the toxic components may degrade and leach into the environment. Only about 1% of used cell phones in the US are recycled at present; that means that 550 million phones go into landfills each year. All those phones together contain thousands of tons of poisonous metals, which could potentially seep into the soil and groundwater beneath the landfill.

If your own phone or other mobile device has just about reached the end of its usable life, here are some options for recycling it:
CollectiveGood
http://www.collectivegood.com/
EcoCell
http://www.eco-cell.org/
Cell for Cash
http://www.cellforcash.com/
Recellular
www.recellular.com/recycling/

CELL PHONE TOWERS

As users, we don't always think about cell towers (unless we're out of range). However, cell towers can negatively impact the environment in several different ways.

Lighted metal scaffold towers are extremely dangerous for birds, who collide with the structures at an incredible rate.

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