Primary and secondary schools in New South Wales, Qeensland, Victoria, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory are being rewarded for their recent recycling efforts as part of MobileMuster’s Old Phone More Trees Schools Challenge.

One hundred and twenty seven schools participated in the Old Phones, More Trees Schools Challenge collecting 4,800 mobile phone handsets as well as 618 kg of batteries and accessories. As a result almost 5000 native trees will be planted over the next 12 months.

Each school and participating classes were rewarded with certificates, Officeworks vouchers and individual student prizes, such as squidgy phones, school packs, slap watches or backpacks, depending on how many phones they collected.

The top primary and secondary schools in each participating State and Territory were

Kaleen Primary School in the ACT

St Josephs Primary School, West Kempsey (North Coast) – NSW

St Ignatius College, Riverview - NSW

Holy Spirit School, Cranbrook - QLD

Chisholm Catholic College, Cornubia – QLD

St Patrick’s, Ballarat - VIC

Aitken College, Greenvale - VIC

Baldivis Primary School - WA

Rose Read, Manager of Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association’s (AMTA) mobile phone recycling program, congratulated all the schools for their outstanding effort.

“By recycling and reusing the metals and plastics in mobile phones, students can help avoid up to 90% of the greenhouse gases that would normally be emitted when extracting and refining the same metals from the ground and plastics from petroleum by-products,” she said.

“The Schools Challenge was a great way for students to learn about recycling mobile phones while also making a positive environmental impact.”

Brian Scarsbrick, Landcare Australia CEO, says the MobileMuster World Environment Day Schools Challenge will provide long term benefits for both students and the Australian environment.

“Tree planting brings widespread environmental benefits because trees absorb the harmful greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. This helps reduce global warming, regenerate soil, and conserve natural habitats,” he said.