By Dan Muhuni- East African ICT correspondent. (Blogger www.ictkenya.wordpress.com & www.danictkenya.blogspot.com )
Dorothy Ooko, is the Nokia's Communications Manager in East and Southern Africa
The Success of the Nokia Recycling Plan:
1) The success of Nokia recycling plan? What is the response from Kenyans? Nokia was in process of developing a series of campaigns and activities to give people more information on why, how and where to recycle their old and unwanted devices, chargers and mobile accessories. How many of these campaigns have you conducted so far and elaborate on the success?
“Dorothy “According to a global consumer survey Nokia released in September 2008, only 3% of people recycle their mobile phones despite the fact that most have old devices lying around at home that they no longer want. Three out of every four people added that they don’t even think about recycling their devices and nearly half were unaware that it is even possible to do so. The survey is based on interviews with 6,500 people in 13 countries including Finland , Germany , Italy , Russia , Sweden , UK , United Arab Emirates, USA , Nigeria , India , China , Indonesia and Brazil . It was conducted to help Nokia find out more about consumers’ attitudes and behaviors towards recycling, and inform the company’s take-back programs and efforts to increase recycling rates of unused mobile devices.
The goal of the take-back and recycling is to make it easy for the consumers to act green by offering the possibility to return old, unused phones & accessories to Authorised Service Vendor network. 'Looking after the environment is a responsibility to be shared by everyone of us," asserts Nicholas Maina, Customer Care Manager, East Africa.
We conducted this survey because we wanted to explore new ways to increase the numbers of mobile devices that are recycled, something that despite significant investment in collection schemes and recycling processes over recent years remains relatively low.
We were surprised to see just how low awareness was on this issue, even to the extent that half of those surveyed had no idea that a mobile device could be recycled. Clearly there is much more that can be done in this area which is why we are publicising the results of this survey and trying to raise awareness of these issues. We are also investing in expanding our network of collection points and making them more visible to consumers when they visit our stores and care centres.
The theoretical recycling ability of Nokia mobile devices ranges from 65 to 80 percent. You might wonder what happens to all the old mobile phones out there. Where do they go? Currently most end up in people’s desk drawers, sitting there useless. The next most likely answer is that phones are often given to others or traded in for an upgrade. In today’s reality, recycling old phones is not such a common practice. This is something we are attempting to change.
Nokia supports the concept of individual producer responsibility. In order for us to carry out our own responsibilities we need others in the value chain, like consumers and retailers, to commit to bring back obsolete mobile devices for responsible recycling. Such co-operation eventually leads to a situation where significant drivers for environmentally optimized product desing enabling easier recycling would become commonplace, bringing further benefits for consumers, producers and the environment.
We are expanding the global availability and accessibility of takeback channels to our customers. We are also committed to continually driving visibility and awareness on this issue wherever we do business. We are currently developing awareness-building programs that fit into existing recycling infrastructure and local culture norms as well as pending local legal requirements.
We want to make it easier for people to recycle their unwanted mobile devices and are investing in a number of different areas to make this happen.
Throughout this year we will be running a major training and awareness program designed to ensure that those working in care centers operated on behalf of Nokia take back unwanted devices and can advise consumers on recycling issues. We are also investing in putting more take back bins and collection points at these care centers.
To help us understand what else still needs to be done we are conducting research with consumers in many markets around the world looking at attitudes to recycling mobile devices, incentives and how we can make it easier for people to get involved in take back programs. This will inform our recycling programs going forward.
Old phones might seem worthless but they still contain many usable and valuable materials. Nokia’s idea is to make it easier for consumers to act green by offering the possibility to return old, unused phones and accessories. Authorized Nokia Service Points, flagship stores, municipal collections, industry association's collections, or retailers' campaigns are all possible channels for returning used products.
Though we are not in the recycling business, we understand the need to cooperate with partners who specialize in this industry. Collected products are forwarded to selected recyclers for reclaiming. Recyclers we use comply with Nokia standards and are assessed by us on a regular basis.
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