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25.09.2020

Recycle your old smartphone at ISYY offices - Tree Amigos will plant a tree in Kenya for every recycled phone!

Bring your useless smartphone to the ISYY office in Joensuu or Kuopio to be recycled and our partner Tree Amigos will plant a tree for every recycled phone! Read below why you should recycle and what happens to the phone after you bring it to be recycled.

The essential thing is to remember that phones don’t belong to the mixed waste, but should be recycled. Manufacturing mobile phones and their usage causes CO2 emissions. The best thing you can do to the environment is to keep using your phone for as long as possible. However, if you are eager to buy a new phone, that is when you should absolutely recycle your still working phone. This way the entire lifespan of the phone can be utilized. One person's trash is another person's treasure, so if your phone works it can be reused. 

In addition to CO2 emissions, the mining of metals for manufacturing is harmful to the environment as the mining industry ruins the soil and pollutes the air. Several components can be retrieved from a phone when it is being recycled. This affects the need for mining of new metals.

All collected phones are further delivered to Tree Amigos, who make the data on phones completely unreadable and wipe the memory after. This multi-step work by their data shredding program ensures that even if one tried to restore the files, it would be impossible.

In the best case a recycled phone ends up to be reused. These phones are repaired which extends considerably the phones’ lifespan. Phones that have come to the end of their useful lives are crushed. Important components like gold, copper, aluminum and platinum are separated and collected. One of the most important elements to be retrieved from a phone is it’s battery.

Tree Amigos plants the trees in co-operation with the International Tree Foundation. The trees will be planted in Kenya through 20 Million Trees For Kenya's Forest -program. Planting trees is one of the best ways to tackle our carbon footprint and it provides jobs, which supports the locals near the plantation.

Here is three easy steps to recycle your phone:

1. Go through your drawers and find your old phone, broken ones are okay too. Transfer the data you want to save from your phone and reset it to factory settings. If you have an iPhone, remember to turn off Find My iPhone first.
2. Bring your phone to the ISYY office and pick up your overall badge. We will deliver all the recycled phones to Tree Amigos.
3. Smile, there is going to be a new tree in Kenya! You can follow the 20 Million Trees For Kenya's Forest -program on the International Tree Foundation’s website.

Read more in English:

Treeamigos.fi: Intro

Internationaltreefoundation.org: 20 Million Trees for Kenya's Forests