How do you securely recycle old smartphones?

In the UK, a lot of us are reliant on our smartphones. They provide a means of distraction, a way to stay connected, a way to keep safe, and a place to store information.

If you were to go outside and walk down the road today, you’d likely see someone absorbed by their smartphone. They could be listening to music or a podcast via their device, scrolling through social media, finding their way on Google Maps, or on a video call with their best friend. In fact, the phone captivation stretches beyond the pavement. The Crime Survey for England and Wales recently revealed that 46.9% of drivers use a mobile phone while driving or stationary in traffic. A lot of us are constantly connected.

In 2023, people in the UK spent an average of 3 hours and 49 minutes per day looking at their mobile devices, and the majority of us are always in reach of our phones. Given the above, it’s no surprise that our mobile phones contain a huge amount of personal information.

So, what should we do with our mobile phones when they get broken or we treat ourselves to an upgrade?

Mobile phone recycling

Before recycling

Rather than storing all your old devices in a drawer somewhere, you can put their valuable resources back to good use. The first thing to do, however, is to ensure you back up all of the information you want to keep. You can do this either by storing your photos, contacts, and other important information on a cloud-based service that works with your phone system such as iCloud, Samsung Cloud, OneDrive, or Google Drive. Alternatively, you could use something like a hard drive to store your information when transferring between devices.

Once you have retrieved everything you need from your old device, we recommend wiping it with a factory reset. This will remove almost everything from your device. Once everything is removed, it’s ready to recycle.

How does mobile phone recycling work?

Every recycler uses a slightly different process. This is what we typically do at Shred Station to recycle mobile phones.

• Mobile phones with removable batteries – If your mobile phone has a removable battery, we will remove it for you as part of our service. This is because batteries are hazardous and have to be treated separately from standard electronic waste. The “body” of the phone will then be dismantled and separated into material streams for recycling. This includes PCB boards, non-ferrous metals, ferrous metals, plastics, and any packaging. From there, the components are sent to an authorised treatment facility for further processing.
• Smartphones – When we receive smartphones for recycling, all data will be re-wiped. This is just to ensure any data left on the phone is 100% gone. Usually, this isn’t required, but when collecting hundreds of smartphones, it becomes a vital security step in the recycling process. As with mobile phones, manual dismantling will then take place. The first step, after wiping, is to remove the battery. Then, all recoverable parts are recycled. Depending on the age and condition of the device, they may be suitable for refurbishment and re-use.
• Lithium batteries – All lithium batteries are sent to a specialist lithium battery recycler. There, lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other valuable materials are recovered and reused for the manufacture of new goods.

Mobile phone destruction

If you would prefer the destruction of your mobile device, that is something we can facilitate, and all batteries will be removed as part of the service.

With mobile phone destruction services, your devices will be placed into a large industrial shredder, purpose-built for handling metals. With this option, material recovery is still possible for a high proportion of the components, such as metals, and any parts which aren’t recyclable will be sent to Energy from Waste.

SIM card destruction

As well as recycling your mobile phone, another service you may need is SIM card destruction. Your old SIM cards could contain confidential or personal information. Rather than putting old SIM cards into general waste where that information could be retrieved, we recommend a SIM card destruction service. With this service, your SIM card will be shredded into tiny fragments, rendering it unusable and all data irretrievable.

If you want to learn more about our mobile phone recycling services or want to discuss your requirements with a member of our team, get in touch today.

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