[Michael]

With customers methodically switching mobile services and upgrading to newer models, discarded cell phones are hitting incinerators and landfills in record numbers, contaminating the environment.

But now users have the option of donating unwanted phones to non-profit groups, developing nations, or for recycling the components in environmentally safe ways.

"With a phone from last year donated to CARE (international aid organization) you can probably feed somebody for a month with the revenues generated," said Seth Heine, president of Atlanta-based Collective Good Inc., which runs a cell phone collection program at http://www.collectivegood.com.

"The simple act of recycling your cell phone can have profound ramifications," Heine said. "The money can be used for immunization to keep a child from dying from a disease, or you can save 1,000 square-feet of rain forest forever."

More than 128 million people in the United States use cell phones, typically replacing them after 18 months, according to a recent study by INFORM Inc., a New York-based environmental research organization.

By 2005, the group predicts that about 130 million cell phones weighing about 65,000 tons will be "retired" annually in the United States.

TOXIC THREAT

Not only do those phones add to the volume of landfill waste but, experts say, the toxins they emit are particularly damaging to the environment.

The phones contain persistent and bioaccumulative toxic chemicals, or PBTs, which have been associated with cancer and other reproductive, neurological and developmental disorders, INFORM said.

The toxins do not degrade, but "accumulate in the environment and can cause damage to the ecosystem," moving up the food chain as people eat plants, livestock and seafood, said Eric Most, director of INFORM's Solid Waste Prevention Program.

Lead, cadmium, mercury and other toxic substances leak into groundwater supplies from landfills, while toxins from incinerated phones pollute the air and eventually come back down to earth in rainwater, he said.

The situation is so dire that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given INFORM a grant to study cell phone collection and donation programs.

To address the situation, the wireless industry started its own recycling effort through the Wireless Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association trade group, which represents wireless phone manufacturers and carriers.

The foundation, through its Donate a Phone program, http://www.donateaphone.com, collects used cell phones and resells them, sharing proceeds with charities and non-profit groups such as Goodwill, Boy Scouts and Habitat for Humanity.

The Wireless Foundation also donates phones and air time to organizations that help victims of domestic violence, schools and neighborhood watch groups. Phones deemed unusable are recycled by ReCellular under strict EPA standards.

WHERE TO DONATE PHONES

People can donate old cell phones at Radio Shack, The Body Shop and Sprint PCS PCS.N stores, said David Diggs, executive director of the Wireless Foundation. And, Motorola Inc. MOT.N is collecting phones at certain NFL football games, he said.

Sprint PCS donates part of its proceeds to the National Organization on Disability and Easter Seals. Cingular Wireless works with the Wireless Foundation and Verizon Communications VZ.N has a similar program called HopeLine.

AT&T Wireless Services Inc. AWE.N is starting a program to donate proceeds from the sale of old phones to charity or donating phones themselves to officials and groups that respond to emergency situations, like the American Red Cross.

Some carriers also offer trade-in and rebate programs at various times of the year.

Founded in 2000, Collective Good is a private effort that allows people to recycle cell phones over the Internet.

Donors have a choice of more than 120 organizations -- from environmental and children's medical groups to international aid and animal rights organizations.

Collective Good purchases the phones, has them recycled in keeping with EPA standards, or refurbishes and resells them, mostly to Latin American countries, said Heine.

Last year's $200 cell phone, for example, could be purchased for about $35 by someone in a country where the cost of cell phones is not subsidized by the service providers as it is in the United States, he said.

"When you're a Guatemalan farmer and you make $600 a year, you'll never be able to buy a new mobile phone," Heine said.

Working Assets and NPI wireless are signed up to recycle customer phones, and Heine said he is talking to other carriers as well as major retailers.

A newly founded effort, http://www.trashphone.com, pays from $1 to $20 per phone, depending on the model, to organizations that want to raise funds, said Tim Leach, founder of the San Diego-based company.

Local groups offer their own recycling programs, like the Animal Humane Association of New Mexico, the Cerebral Palsy organization of Colorado and Oxfam in the United Kingdom.

NO STANDARDIZATION

As noble as recycling is, reducing the amount of waste should also be a goal, says INFORM. Most discarded cell phones are still usable, but people toss them out when they change service or providers introduce newer models, said Most.

To minimize phone "churn" and reduce waste, cell phone companies should offer take-back plans and discounts on new phones in exchange for returned equipment, INFORM said. Vendors should also standardize their adapters, chargers and other components, the group said.

"We're hoping to get manufacturers to think about making phones more durable, easier to disassemble, easier to recycle and that contain less toxic materials," Most said.

Despite industry arguments that standardization would hinder innovation, Heine of Collective Good points out that built-in obsolescence guarantees future sales.

Cell phone manufacturers "don't want to see people recycling mobile phones, and the government doesn't want to make them responsible for their waste," he said