Zain Bahrain, which launched the kingdom’s first-ever National Mobile Phone and e-Waste Recycling Campaign this month has already collected over 300 old, unusable and broken handsets for recycling.

“We were confident that the campaign will answer a long-felt need among Bahrain mobile phone users who want to go green – and our belief has been proven right,” said Samya Hussein, corporate communications manager of Zain Bahrain.

“Responsible e-waste disposal of handsets, mobile phone batteries and other accessories is one of our key CSR initiatives in 2011 and over 300 unusable handsets discarded in our ‘green boxes’, we believe that we have answered an important need in the community.”

Anyone, whether Zain customer or not, can discard their broken and unusable mobile handsets in special drop-boxes placed in the 11 Zain Experience shops.

The e-waste generated by this initiative will be collected, sorted and professionally disposed of in the safest manner possible by Zain Bahrain, which has engaged Enviroserve, a respected environmental waste disposal company for this task. Those who drop off their wasted handsets, meanwhile, can enter a raffle draw to win a new handset and 4 winners have already been rewarded with a brand-new BlackBerry Torch phone each.

E-waste is the largest growing waste stream globally. It is growing at a rate of 3 times faster than any other type of waste and the worrying thing is it’s the most dangerous form of waste within the general waste management umbrella.

Every day, hundreds of phones are disposed of to landfill sites where they are destroying our natural habitat with acids and hazardous products which enter our groundwater system. This can be easily averted because the bulk of a mobile handset consists of components that are plastic, ceramic, or metals.

Almost all components of a mobile handset can be either recycled or used in a way so that nothing goes into landfills as e-waste. Mobile handset chargers can be recycled as well as other mobile accessories.-TradeArabia News Service