Sprint announced today its renewed partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for “Plug-In To eCycling National Cell Phone Recycling Week,” April 5-11, 2010. Sprint is launching an aggressive social media campaign to build upon the 3.7 million phones that it collected for reuse and recycling in 2009.
“Sprint is pleased to work again with the EPA to increase awareness and consumer participation in electronics recycling, or eCycling,” said Ralph Reid, Sprint vice president of Corporate Responsibility. “We are committed to eCycling efforts. With approximately 16,000 cell phones discarded every hour in the U.S., we encourage our customers and other wireless customers to give their old phones a second life by recycling them.”
Sprint was the first to set an ambitious, long-term goal to recover for reuse or recycling the equivalent of 90 percent of handsets sold by 2017. Sprint’s collection rate for 2009 was 42 percent, up from a 34 percent rate the previous year. In total, Sprint’s take back programs have diverted more than 20 million cell phones from landfills for reuse or recycling since 2001.
Sprint is the only major U.S. wireless carrier to offer in-store financial incentives to consumers for recycling their eligible devices regardless of make, manufacturer or carrier
