Starting today, new Federal Communications Commission rules go into effect. Millions of cell phone users can keep their phone numbers if they switch companies. That means millions of old cell phones could be left behind. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
Starting today (Monday, November 24th), new Federal Communications
Commission rules go into effect. Millions of cell phone users can keep
their phone numbers if they switch companies. That means millions of old
cell phones could be left behind. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams has more:
Researchers who study cell phone use expect the rules to encourage people to
get new phones. When they do, most of those old phones will
end up in landfills and incinerators. It’s a problem because cell phones
contain toxins and heavy metals that can be released into the environment.
The wireless industry and others have started cell phone collection programs
in response. Eric Most is with Inform, Incorporated, an independent research group.
He studied the collection programs.
“These programs are definitely one potential solution to addressing wireless
waste, but one of the issues is that the small fraction of discarded phones
that these programs are recovering are merely being shifted from the U.S. to
countries that are even less equipped to handle them responsibly in end of
life.”
Most says ideally, the industry should be responsible for the entire life
cycle of the phones. But he says right now, it’s still better to donate old
phones to a collection program than toss them in the trash.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.