Recycle your cell phone, save the gorillas.
It is not as simple as that, but a recycling program to collect old cell phones at the San Diego Zoo and other American zoos is highlighting the little-known connection between cell phone use and the survival of African gorillas.
Recycling your cell phones protects landfills from the many potentially hazardous chemicals found in the phones, including antimony, arsenic, copper, cadmium, lead, and zinc.
But cell phones also include coltan, a mineral extracted in the deep forests of Congo in central Africa, home to the world's endangered lowland gorillas.
Illegal Miners
Coltan, short for Columbite-tantalite is a metallic ore comprising Niobium and Tantalum, found mainly in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formally Zaire). When refined, coltan becomes a heat resistant powder, metallic tantalum which has unique properties for storing electrical charge.
These properties are ideal for making capacitors, which are used in many electronic devices, including cell phones.
Eighty percent of the world's known coltan supply is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There, it is mined by hand by groups of men digging basins in streams, scraping away dirt to get to the muddy coltan underneath.
The cell-phone boom in the last decade induced a flood of more than 10,000 illegal miners into protected parks in central Africa.
"The mining itself certainly destroys habitat, so human activity at the very least disturbs the animals there. But more of what happens is that the animals are hunted and killed," said Killmar, the San Diego Zoo curator. "The impact is nothing but negative."
Conflict, illegal mining, and the growing bush-meat trade (the hunting of wild animals for food) have all contributed to a 70 percent population decline of the eastern lowland gorilla, according to some estimates.
The worldwide cell phone boom, caused the price of Coltan to rocket to as high as US$600 per kilogram (1kilogram = 2.2 pounds) at one point, although it has settled down to around US$100 per kilogram at the moment. A Coltan miner can earn as much as US$200 per month, compared to a typical salary of US$10 per month for the average Congolese worker.
Congo's out-of-control coltan mining business has in recent years led to a dramatic reduction of animal habitat and the rampant slaughter of great apes for the illegal bush-meat trade.
"Most people don't know that there's a connection between this metal in their cell phones and the well-being of wildlife in the area where it's mined," said Karen Killmar, the associate curator of mammals at the San Diego Zoo.
"Recycling old cell phones is a way for people to do something very simple that could reduce the need for additional coltan … and help protect the gorillas," she said.
The San Diego Zoo is among 46 zoos that have joined the recycling program, which is run by Eco-Cell, a cell phone-recycling firm based in Louisville, Kentucky
Also do not buy a new cell phone every year. And even better do not buy a cell phone at all, because it remains the open question of what effect these cell phones have on our health and well being. Radiation from mobile phones causes changes in the brain which could pose risks to health.
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The ECO-CELL program has made it very easy for anyone to participate in conservation. For the cost of postage only (usually less than $4) people can donate their phones and make a positive impact on the environment. Cell phones can be mailed into:
ECO-CELL
Attn: Earth Day Initiative
2701 Lindsay Avenue
Louisville, KY 40206
Comments
donating cell phones
Cell phones radiating our brains, are you kidding me? We've all got to die of something and for some people, a cell phone helps their business, their family ties, etc. You may not want one but I'm not sure it's your place to tell others not to buy them. In any case, isn't it easier to bring an old phone when you take a trip to a store that recycles them rather than spending the $ to send it off to Kentucky? Any recycling should help the world, not just sending phones to this specific outfit. Just a thought.
cell phone radiations
If there is a store close to you that will take back your old cell phone to recycle it, then by all means do bring it there, that is common sense isn't it? Thank you for bringing this up.
But if you don't know where to bring your old cell phone to have it recycled, at least I offer one solution.
As for cell phone radiations...
...Does this sound familiar?
* Nearly everyone uses it
* Has wide social acceptance
* Highly habit forming
More hints:
* More and more studies come out documenting harm from the product
* Product manufacturer denies dangers
Sure sounds like the tobacco industry, doesn't it? Well, it would appear the cellular phone industry is repeating the same path. We all know that history has a tendency to repeat itself, and that certainly seems to be the case here.
Critics claim the cell phone industry, just like the tobacco industry (Big Tobacco), seems determined to prevent and deny any suggestion that its products might be dangerous; however, years of negative research may prove otherwise.
Dr. George Carlo, who was hired by the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association to head up a $28 million research program into possible health effects from cellular phones. Unfortunately, he now says his findings show an increased rate of brain cancer deaths, development of tumors, and genetic damage among heavy cell phone users. He wrote this letter of concern to the president of AT&T Corporation and later went public with his findings after what he considered to be neglect by the industry. He's since broken with the industry, become a vocal critic, and coauthored a book called Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age--so you can tell he's on the "cell phones could cause cancer" side of things.
Meanwhile, more studies keep coming, and they seem to be getting worse. A study funded by the European Union reported last December that radio waves from mobile phones do, definitively, damage DNA and other cells in the body--and that the damage extended to the next generation of cells. Even though mutated cells are considered a possible cause of cancer, the UK National Radiological Protection Board said that since the study didn't show that the damage definitely led to disease, consumers shouldn't worry too much about the findings.
Uh, right. In the meantime, the report recommended that children use mobile phones only in emergency situations. You know, just in case. How reassuring.
The cell phone industry hasn't commissioned another large-scale study--at least not publicly--since its fateful encounter with Dr. Carlo--and why would they? They're in a catch-22. It's a multibillion dollar industry, and they simply can't afford to find out, definitively, that cell phones are dangerous. Worse, just like the tobacco companies, if they start issuing warnings and precautionary tales now, it'll look like they knew all along that the radio waves were dangerous, opening them up to major liability claims. They've already dodged one big, big bullet--an $800 million lawsuit against Motorola and cell phone carriers was thrown out in 2002, with the judge ruling that there wasn't sufficient evidence for trial. Since then, neurologist Dr. Christopher Newman, who filed the lawsuit, has died of brain cancer.
Listen, I use a cell phone, and I'm not trying to scare the bejesus out of everyone. But I do use a headset when I'm talking for any long period of time. And if you're shopping for a new phone, you might want to check our cell phone radiation chart to see which ones carry a low dose.
In a few more years, we'll either know for sure that cell phones can cause cancer, or we'll know they can't. I just hope we don't find out the hard way--through subpoenaed documents from cell phone makers and carriers who've been trying to minimize their damages and maximize their profits for more than a decade.
recycling mobiles to save the gorillas
Keeping in view the gorillas atleast, if not other benifits, we all should
adopt the system of recycle mobiles, indeed..
recycling mobiles to save the gorillas
Keeping in view the gorillas atleast, if not other benifits, we all should
adopt the system of recycle mobiles, indeed..