AMTA’s Manager, Recycling, Rose Read is a guest speaker at the Global Green Telecoms Summit to be held in Berlin from 10-12 November. Ms Read will present a paper on Facility mobile phone recycling in Australia and sitting on a panel to discuss the topic “Recycling Initiatives are in place but the majority of consumers are not recycling – what more can be done to increase consumer input?”

MobileMuster is the only industry-wide program for electronic waste offering free recycling for all mobile phone brands in Australia. It is believed to be the only such scheme in the world.

Recent international market research conducted by Nokia of 6500 people from 13 countries across the globe – not including Australia – found that 3% of people recycle their mobile phones. Australian online research conducted by IPSOS on behalf of AMTA in February 2008 of 650 mobile phone users in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth found that 6% of people recycled their previous mobile phone – twice the level internationally.

Ms Read said the main reason Australia’s recycling rate is double other countries is awareness of mobile phone recycling is more than 75%, whereas in many other countries it is less than 50%