Recycling Appeal

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Recycle and Raise Money for the CBA

This page provides some important background information on why the CBA sees recycling as an important activity. Please also visit the following pages for further details:

Recycle your Toner Cartridges and Mobile Phones

Recycle your old mobile phones and inkjet cartridges and you will be helping raise valuable funds for the CBA as well as doing your bit for the environment.

For every mobile phone and inkjet cartridge recycled, the CBA will receive a cash donation. This money will help us to carry out vital work for archaeology across the UK.

You can also increase the value of the donation to the CBA from the recycling scheme by 28% simply by filling in the Gift Aid form on your freepost envelopes.

Why is recycling a good thing?

If everyone in the world lived as we do in the UK, we would need eight Earths to satisfy our resource needs. Recycling helps minimise our impact on the earth.

But recycling isn’t just about turning old products into new products. Recycling is actually the last stage of a three step process:

Reduce Reuse Recycle

While reducing the amount of waste we produce is everyone’s individual responsibility, Recycling your old cartridges and mobile phones for the CBA helps you with the reuse and recycling activities too.

The CBA recycling appeal helps Redeem recover products for reuse. Products that can’t be reused are recycled, and where reuse or recycling is not possible, are disposed of using the Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO) for waste disposal.

Most mobiles received are repaired and sold on as working phones. Those that can’t be repaired are sent to an end-of-life recycling partner to have all precious metals extracted, and any remaining materials smelted for energy recovery.

Most printer cartridges collected are sold to re-manufacturers who recondition and refill the product to sell to consumers as an environmentally friendly option.

Mobile Phone Facts

  • Many mobile phones have NiCad batteries which contain Nickel and Cadmium, a toxic and carcinogenic substance.
  • When mobiles are binned, they end up in landfill sites where toxic contamination can be caused as Cadmium leaks into surrounding soils. Cadmium poisoning can cause kidney failure in humans. These toxins are also dangerous for wildlife.
  • In the UK about 40 per cent of the population have at least one mobile phone. Almost 90 per cent of 15–44 year olds own a mobile.
  • It is estimated that there are up to 90 million unused mobile phones in homes and workplaces throughout Britain.

Cartridge Facts

  • Of the 60 million printer cartridges used each year in the UK, only about 10% are currently recycled. This means that 57 million cartridges get thrown away each year and end up in landfill sites or are incinerated.
  • The plastic used in a typical cartridge is made of engineering grade polymers, so it is expected that each cartridge could take up to 1000 years to decompose if placed in landfills.
  • 90ml of oil is used to produce each inkjet cartridge and roughly 3.5 litres of oil are needed to make one new laser cartridge. Oil is a non renewable fossil fuel.

Contact Cherida Plumb, Head of Development for more details.