Following the recycled cell phone trail…

It’s not quite the yellow brick road — the electronic chip road, mayhap? — but recycling obsolete electronics like cell phones is certainly one of the roads we can take to our “Oz” of a more sustainable society. As I mentioned, local vegan leather company Matt & Nat and 1 Optimum teamed up to gather old cell phones outside Sun Youth (and benefitting Sun Youth!) to help 1 Optimum end their month-long collection campaign.

The skies may have been grey, but long-time mobile talkers came out in droves to hand off their old cell phones, some so old and brick-like that the team just had to keep them out of the boxes, on display for those too young to remember to marvel at. Everyone who donated a phone was given a Matt & Nat eco-friendly shopping bag… Y’know, so we can avoid adding more plastic bags to landfills?

When I stopped by, the old phones I saw reminded me of my mother’s first models, some of which stayed in the drawer of her front hall table for years after they were abandoned. (I can only hope they were eventually recycled… and if they’re still there the next time I pay her a visit, I’ll grab ‘em and save ‘em for the next round of recycling!)

Even crazier than my trip down memory lane was the fact that I saw my cell phone, the one that I use every day, in one of the collection bags. Wait — someone was so desperate to have the newest, shiniest model that the one I bought not even two years ago is now considered obsolete by some? I’m not worried about cell phone fashion — jeez, it’s just a talking device! — but about desperate consumerism. Who cares if there’s a new Blackberry colour available next week when your old one works just fine?

Granted, it’s possible that this particular phone broke and was beyond repair. In that case, I applaud the recycler… and scorn the manufacturer, the designer, the company, the CEO…  See, is there any reason why electronic goods need to be designed to be thrown out? I don’t care how fast new technology comes out; if it still works, it still works.

I think I meant this more to be a congratulatory post for Matt & Nat and 1 Optimum… and yet it turned into a rant. Maybe that’s not a bad thing! Maybe it’s important to get these things off our chests so we can turn to creating solutions with fresh minds.

So, with that, I congratulate the recycling partners and everyone who held on to those clunkers for years just to give ‘em to someone who needs ‘em.