Mobile Recycling! Where are You?

I woke to the obnoxious odor firing my olfactory neurons and signaling my motor cortex to cover my nose with my handkerchief or maybe even cease breathing for a few seconds till we pass the only entry to the nation’s capital New Delhi from National Highway 1 (NH1).

I took a look at the horizon behind the metal tops of trucks along my car and saw a real disturbing view. A whole big lot of waste from the capital being deposited on top to carve rusty colored mountains with crows and eagles hovering on top and flies dancing to the disco beat sounds of the falling waste from the top and the engine noise of the heavy duty trucks. Not an uncommon scene for now it has been ever since I can imagine down the memory lane of my visits to Delhi. But this time the site of this rather regular view made me think deep into the realms of the icy hot topic of Recycling and particularly mobile recycling article I read over at the Nokia Conversations.

India a land supporting more than one hundred billion lives, the fastest growing economic giant with endless ventures of various opportunities for all, yet there is hardly any hint of recycling in the air.

Practically there is no word about recycling in Indian homes, although we are taught in school and other education institutions about various things that can be recycled and eventually do well to mother earth.

The big question to ask is, “Will India ever start Recycling?”

Drifting away from the huge piles of waste spread over miles I head towards Pitampura, to take a exit towards Narina. On way I could make out that a lot of shops displaying the word Nokia. This got my attention to take a quick bend from waste recycling to mobiles and the present scenario in India. It suddenly opened a new window of thoughts inside my gray and white matter connections.

Anther big question that may answer the above question is that, “Can Mobile Recycling carve a path for Waste Recycling in India?”

Let us take a look on how Nokia is undertaking this Recycling issue of old mobile phones which are otherwise filling up our closets.

The fact, up to 80% of any Nokia device is recyclable and precious materials within it can be reused to help make new products such as kitchen kettles, park benches, dental fillings or even saxophones and other metal musical instruments.

Globally, half of those surveyed didn’t know phones could be recycled like this, with awareness lowest in India at 17%.

Between 65 – 80 per cent of a Nokia device can be recycled. Plastics that can’t be recycled are burnt to provide energy for the recycling process, and other materials are ground up into chips and used as construction materials or for building roads. In this way nothing has to go to landfill.

Click here for a Video of how things are going around.

The effects of this new revolution on our environment are promising. From decreased CO levels to prevention of global warming.

These can be glanced up here.

A jerky stop amidst the buzzing traffic shakes my head into yet another horizon. Why will someone recycle his/her oldie? What will he gain out of this? Questions like these will continue to crop up and these do need answers. The water is as for now calm but it sure has made a ripple that may travel along in future can make big waves.

Cast what you feel about this in the following poll. Check out the Survey done by Nokia on this topic

~ by gomcoite on July 14, 2008.