The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association is pleased to release the 2008-09 Annual Report for MobileMuster, the official recycling program of the mobile phone industry. This includes PriceWaterhouseCoopers independent assurance report on Key Performance Indicators, for your information.

 Thanks to all participants and the general public, MobileMuster collections and awareness have continued to increase while disposal of mobile phones to landfill continues to decrease.

 Key highlights include:

 Collections (pages 2-4) Annual Collections increased by 26% to 122 tonne this includes 806,000 handsets and batteries as well as 69.7 tonne of accessories Annual Collection rate of net imports has increased from 5.5% to 7.8% Annual Collection rate of discarded phone increased from 18.9% to 38.2%.

 Recycling (pages 4-5) Diversion from Landfill continues to be greater than 90% as a result it is estimated that more than 280 kg of cadmium, 7.5 tonnes of plastics, 280 kilograms of nickel and 2.3 kilograms of gold along with a number of other metals have been diverted from landfill and recovered to make new products like Plasmar fence posts, stainless steel and jewellery.

Consumer behaviour (pages 5-6) Storage rate of 2 or more mobiles has dropped very slightly from 32% to 31% - people keeping their old mobile phones is one of our the biggest barriers to growing collections Disposal to landfill rate dropped from 4% to 2% Awareness of mobile phone recycling increased from 75% to 79%.

Industry Participation (pages 6-7) Manufacturers dropped from 85% to 81% Mobile Network Carriers increased from >95% to 100%.

It’s been a good year but there is still a way to go. The industry is committed to continue to grow collections to 155 tonnes for 2009-2010 and looks forward to working with you to achieve this target. As the report shows our biggest challenge is encouraging people to not keep so many old phones at home but to recycle them.

This annual report together with the Mobile Phone Industry’s Statement of Commitment to Mobile Phone Recycling and previous annual reports and submissions can all be viewed online.