MOE Promotes a Pan-National Campaign to Collect Used Mobile Phones

The Ministry of Environment conducts a campaign to collect used mobile phones from April 12 to June 30 joined by local governments, Korean Association of Electronics Industry & Environment, manufacturers (Samsung, LG, Pantech, Motorola, and KT Tech), service providers (SKT, KT, and LGT), Korea Environment Corporation, and International Love Foundation, etc.

The campaign aims at collecting one million used mobile phones through diverse channels including elementary and middle schools, manufacturers, retail stores of telecommunications companies, railway stations, local governments, social organizations, government-affiliated organizations, and universities participating in Green Campus campaign, etc. Compared to the previous campaign, which collected 370,000 used mobile phones, participation channels and the target volume have been significantly expanded.

This pan-national campaign is backed by the Presidential Committee on Green Growth, the Korea Communications Commission, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and participated by Child Fund Korea, Community Chest of Korea, and Woongjin, etc.

Those in charge of collection will be trained thoroughly in order to prevent leakage of personal information in used mobile phones.

Among collected mobile phones, those which can be reused will be sold for reusing and those which cannot be reused will be sold to recycling companies. If a million used mobile phones are recycled, metal resources of about 2billion won can be obtained. Profits from selling used mobile phones will be donated for the needy after being paid for conducting events.

The campaign is expected to be a good opportunity to raise the public recognition on the value of waste-to-resources and the Ministry of Environment plans to make a system to collect diverse disposed metal resources including mobile phones on a regular basis.

Myung-su Yu, Eui-seok Jeong (+82-2-2110-6953) / Resource Recycling Division, Ministry of Environment