Recycle your phone to save a chimp at Monarto
South Australian households asked to recycle old mobiles to support primate conservation.
Residents across South Australia are being asked to spring clean their tech junk drawers this September and recycle their old or broken mobile phones to help save the habitats of chimpanzees and gorillas.
Across Australia, an estimated 22 million unused mobile phones are sitting unused gathering dust in drawers and cupboards.
More than half of these phones are broken and no longer functional as back-up devices.
Mobile Muster, Australia’s world-leading not-for-profit mobile phone recycling program, is asking Australians to responsibly recycle this clutter, teaming up with coo partners across Australia including Adelaide Zoo and Monarto Safari Park for the They’re Calling On You campaign, which started on World Primate Day, September 1.
Mobile Muster will donate $1 for every mobile phone recycled nationally through its program during September.
Funds raised will directly support international primate conservation initiatives, including the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, Jane Goodall Institute Australia and Gorilla Doctors.
Mobile phones contain finite metals and minerals, including copper, aluminium, cobalt, nickel, and lithium, and recovering materials from existing devices reduced the demand for new resource extraction, Zoos SA said.
The mining of these raw materials greatly contributed to the degradation of wild habitats, including areas where primates lived.
Monarto Safari Park is home to a troupe of 12 chimpanzees, who are our closest living relatives, sharing 98.7 per cent of humans' DNA.
“Not only is it great to recycle old phones to protect habitat, but the proceeds raised support chimpanzee conservation, education, and rescue sanctuaries,” said Monarto Safari Park primate team supervisor Laura Hanley.
“We’d love to see visitors celebrating chimpanzees and their conservation with us this September and bringing along an old phone to recycle will make your visit to Monarto Safari Park even more special.”
Mobile Muster's Helen Maisano said a five-minute de-clutter could make a huge difference to the conservation of primates for future generations.
“Most of us have a drawer at home filled with old technology we don’t know what to do with,” she said.
“So find your old or broken mobile phones, chargers, cables and accessories, factory reset phones where possible and then search ‘Mobile Muster’ to find the closest responsible recycling option; and if you can't do a factory reset, don’t worry, as all your data is completely destroyed in the recycling process.”
Mobile Muster’s recycling process successfully recovers more than 95% of a phone's materials, returning them to the supply chain to create new products.
Almost every South Australian resident lives within 10 kilometres of a Mobile Muster collection point, including drop-off locations at Monarto Safari Park, major retailers and local councils.
Free post-back options are also available for residents in regional and remote areas across SA.
- Find your nearest recycling location: Visit mobilemuster.com.au.
