'Vintage' Mobile Phones Making Comback In A Big Way

Do you remember when the latest mobiles were a must have, and everyone queued up for hours waiting for the latest release? Well it seems that recently times have changed… Now the ‘vintage’ models are making a comeback in a big way.

Before Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, back when Snake was all you needed to keep you entertained on a rainy winters day. The old mobile phones had basic functions, call and text, the battery life lasted for weeks, and they were practically indestructible - actually, come to think of it, old phones were the best! No more daily charging and constant alerts, well sign us up!

Demands for these old phones are so high that some of them are selling for nearly £80 a piece! A vintage mobile site called vintagemobile.fr is selling Nokia 8800 for almost £200, and it seems that people are buying them. Over the past 2 - 3 years the website estimates to have sold around 10,000 handsets, and that figure has seen some rapid increase since the beginning of 2013.

Some say it’s down to the older generations looking for simpler phones, whilst others just want an easy to use work phone. Although, some think it could the hipster vintage market who are the ones really investing in the current market.

Whoever it is buying them up, we are actually quite glad that the older models seem to be making a comeback. If you’re jumping on the vintage phone bandwagon then don’t forget to recycle your latest model!

Should Mobile Phone Unlocking Be Free?

If you are one of the lucky ones who has reached the end of a phone contract without breaking or losing your phone (it’s okay, some of us here are guilty of it too!) then you’ll know about the policies of some providers - regarding unlocking a mobile to all networks. Currently, there seems to be quite a considerable range in policies when it comes to unlocking a handset. The minority will do it for free, most do it for a substantial cost, and others will not provide the service at all.

Which? has called for providers to unlock all mobiles at the end of a contract, and to alert customers of the best deals going a month before their contract is due to expire.

More than 8 out of 10 customers believe that unlocking a handset should be done for free, especially when they have paid for a handset throughout the course of the contract.

This may seem like common sense; however it certainly hasn't been happening across the board. New research shows most people don't trust their provider to alert them of the best deal to suit them. Only 40% of consumers believe their current provider gives them the best possible deal.

The executive director of Which? stated “'We want to send a message to mobilephone companies that they should help customers get a better deal by alerting people that their contracts are about to end and by unlocking handsets for free."

We agree that more regulation should be called for regarding contracts and unlocking mobiles. What do you guys think? Have you ever been stung at the end (or even the beginning) of a contract? Tell us more in the comments below!

OwnFone Launch First Ever Phone For Blind People

OwnFone, a UK based company who specialize in making low-tech user friendly handsets, has just announced that they may have made life that little bit easier for the visually impaired - by launching the first ever mobile phone handset for blind people.

Other Braille phones have been designed by various companies before this has been released to the public; however OwnFone states that the device is the first of its kind to go on sale.

By using 3D printed Braille buttons and offering short cuts to pre-saved phone numbers, which there are 4 of in total. This handset may have pretty limited functionality compared to other models on the market; that being said, it’s the first step in making a handset a viable option for the visually impaired.

With the prices starting at £60, it isn't only affordable, but convenient and at a reasonable price. The low cost is mostly due to the 3D printing aspect of production, meaning that the parts can be printed off in house, lowering the need for high cost suppliers.

OwnFone have a track recording of developing mobile phones outside of the standard target market. In 2013 the company developed and produced a child-friendly mobile called named 1stFone. The device was around the size of a credit card, and came pre-programmed with a chosen 4 numbers. The model was a hit, with parents up and down the country praising the company for making a simple model for younger children.

OwnFone really are offering a great service to those who may not be suitable for a standard mobile phone.

World Environment Day or "WED".

If you’re passionate about the environment, then you will surely know that it is WED (World Environment day) at the beginning of June. Many schools, companies and individuals all over the world are holding events to raise awareness for the day.

World Environment day is just round the corner (June 5th to be exact) and the residents a town in Australia are doing their bit to honor the day, and recycling their mobile phones.

WED have said that recycling your old handset prevents mass amounts of precious metal being mined, and doing so can drastically help the environment.

To even further push the campaign, the recycling Manager at MobileMuster, Rose Read has openly stated that the citizens of Australia “need to take responsibility for their contribution to the mounting e-waste problem.”

It has been mathematically proven that in the Greater Hume Shire, the town holding the campaign to back WED, that there as many old phones left in homes, garages and office for every man, women and child in the area. This amounts to staggering 31 tones of precious metal ore.

To put that figure into perspective, that’s the environmental equivalent of 27 trees being planted or over 1 thousand aluminum cans.

If all this is being wasted in a town in Australia, the numbers based for the rest of the world must be staggering. Do you have a old phone lying somewhere in a drawer? Mobile phone recycling in the UK has never been easier, so get yourself to Fonehub!

Mobile Dominance

Apple and Google are fighting for mobile video game dominance, a new report has revealed.

Image source: Daniel Adel, New York Times

The mobile giants are both persuading game developers to choose them to be the exclusive holders of their latest games. Both companies are in talks with top game developers to secure a deal. If a game developer chooses to give either brand an exclusivity deal, they will receive ideal placement on the first page of the app store.

This comes as no surprise, as app games are one of the most lucrative markets within the mobile app industry. In traditional gaming, games will often be exclusive to a certain console, and is common marketing practice with console games. However this is relatively new for app games.

Last August, the highly anticipated Plant Versus Zombies 2, struck a deal with apple to appear prominently in the app store. For this publicity, EA agreed to give Apple a 2 month exclusivity deal on the game, meaning Apple users came out on top.

Apple has been the front runner in mobile games for years, mainly due to the fact that IOS is easier to develop for, however, recently Android has leveled the playing field as tools for writing software have become much easier to use. However, an analyst at IDC has publicly stated that “"In terms of decision factors of why you buy the device you do, games are very low," Which has sparked debate on whether exclusive app store games will sway buyers when choosing a device.

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How mobiles help developing countries

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, (or more commonly know as UNESCO) released a report last month highlighting the benefits of mobile handsets in underdeveloped countries. The report shed light on the fact that worldwide literacy is improving at an accelerated rate, which previously has been unheard of before the digital era.

Although mobile handsets are most often used as a method of communication, underprivileged people around the world are using them to read, learn, and expand their current educational skills simply by using the devices. As technology is advancing, the parts required to create a handset are becoming cheaper - which is making it possible for people in poorer countries to purchase a mobile.

The UNESCO report stated ‘for centuries, limited access to text has been a barrier to literacy. Today, however, this barrier is receding thanks to the spread of inexpensive mobile technology. Basic mobiles offer a new, affordable and easy to use portal to reading material."

This is amazing news for the mobile phone industry, and goes to show they bring a lot more to our lives than checking your social media on the go. It’s amazing to see that the advances being made in modern technology, are affecting the quality of life many people in the world receive, and hopefully as time goes on, more advances will be made to break down barriers worldwide. Education and reading skills should be a basic right for everybody in the world, and we can only hope that technology continues to bring education and knowledge to more countries around the world.

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4G in the UK

It has recently been revealed that EE have reached a milestone! The much anticipated 4G rollout has finally reached its 200th town. Not content with bringing 4G mobile speed to the masses, the town they chose had some significant value, after a report announced that a Welsh street has the worst broadband speed in the while of the UK. EE announced that Rhyl, a quaint seaside town in Wales, would be the 200th to receive the signal.

Only 18 months after launching the service in the UK, EE is now covers a whopping 72% of the UK

The CEO made a statement stating "We now have over two million customers using super fast 4G. That's the fastest rollout and uptake of any technology in Britain, and means that the UK's mobile digital infrastructure is now ahead of many other nations. We're proud to have been the driving force that made that happen, but we won't stop there."

He also added

"Our continued drive to deliver 4G to more of the UK means that our customers have access to by far the biggest network in the country. Hitting this landmark highlights that 4G from EE is available wherever people need it - at home, at work, or enjoying the sunshine on the beach n Rhyl, our 200th town.”

It’s amazing to see how widespread 4G has become over the last year and a half, and it can only mean good things for the UK’s technology infrastructure. Are you using 4G? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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Have you ever lost a mobile phone?

For the majority of us, loosing a phone is often emotional, our mobiles aren’t just used for communication anymore. We use our phones as digital cameras, chocked full of pictures, videos, music and personal information. So what is the true cost of losing a phone?

A recent study on information on stolen phones, has revealed the cost of losing so much sensitive information. The information on our phones isn’t solely limited to nice memories anymore, now we have banking apps, Paypal, work emails and a whole barrage of information that could be used against us, if it fell into the wrong hands. In the study, only 50% of phones were encrypted, and 90% had a password lock, however, even though those phones had security - 90% of the time the owners email address was identified. 75% of the time it was possible to identify the owner itself, not just an email address.

In 40% of cases, a variety of passwords were recovered from the devices. Dermot Williams, the director of a security company stated that even those who think they have taken sufficient security measures, still aren’t fully covered. A determined attacker who has access to mobile forensic tools may be able to bypass security features such as password locks and encryption. He also added that even though the majority of mobile phone theft is petty crime often done for cash, our mobile security isn’t as secure as we think it is.

The best way of protecting yourself is to have a lock, encryption and also the ability to remotely wipe the device. That way you are protecting yourself, and your information, to the best of your ability.

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"Mobile Money is the Future" - Find Out More...

Currently, our world is booming in technological advances. Advances that the human race could only have dreamed of 50 years ago - are now in our front rooms, our offices, and our hands. Smart phones are without a doubt one of the most popular pieces of technology at the moment, and the majority of us can’t manage a day without our phones, keeping us constantly connected.

The new contactless payment system which has been rolled out around the UK, allow users to pay for any item under the value of £20. However complaints have been raised with numerous banks that some users are having money taken out of their bank, without their permission, which has caused some controversy over the system. Major banks have responded saying that cases like this are ‘extremely rare.’

However much controversy previous systems have been raising, it seems to be working as similar payment methods are being rolled out across the board. The new system named “PayM” will soon be available for 9 out of 10 current accounts, meaning that users can send contacts on their smart phone money via this method. This new payment system which will be appearing on mobiles will be linked to your online banking, thus preventing the risk of unauthorised money being taken. Hopefully this extra security feature will keep payments safer than before.

Rob Skinner of Paypal UK said “mobile money is the future” and judging by the rapid way that mobile culture is spreading, we would have to be inclined to agree.

O2 Mobile Recycling Reaches 1 Million

02 are one the largest network providers in the UK, providing their service to millions of members up and down the country. As one of the top network providers, having a commitment to a greener future is a commendable action, and 02 are certainly fulfilling that requirement. Having just (this weekend!) reached their 1 million mobile phones recycled target; many other network providers are looking into how they can also take a greener look on their business.

02’s recycle scheme which has now been active since 2009 has now saved 42,000 tonnes of C02. This means that it has only taken less than 5 years to save that amount. To put that statistic in to perspective for you, the same amount of c02 would be produced by 7000 homes in a twelve month period. This is a staggering amount of emissions saved, and it’s great to see proactive steps being taken by someone as large as 02.

According to 02, this hasn’t just been beneficial to the environment. The 02 scheme has also helped to provide funding for various projects up and down the UK, as part of its Think Big Youth program. The funding has gone to projects such as anti-violence campaigns, activity clubs and STEM outreach funding, this has helped so many different people up and down the country.

It’s amazing to see such a big operator giving back in these sorts of ways, and we can only hope that the providers in the UK take note of the great work 02 is putting back into our communities.

3 Scrap 0800 Dialling Charges

Good news for 3 mobile customers this week, as the provider has scrapped all charges when calling premium rate numbers. This means that 0800 numbers are now free of charge when calling from any 3 mobile. Not only that, 3 have lowered the charges to call other premium rate numbers. 3 are the first of the top mobile providers to scrap this fee for their 9 million customers, and as 3 is Britain’s smallest telephone operator, they could pave the way to revolutionising premium rate number charges. Although, considering it’s been estimated that operators make nearly £600 million per year from premium rate numbers; we’re not sure whether other companies will be willing to accept this loss across the board.

 New customers will feel the benefit today; however old customers can opt in, at no extra charge or contract renewal. This comes into effect as Ofcom have announced that from June 2015 providers must make these charges much more clear for their consumers, as a staggering 47% of mobile users have been shocked to receive a phone bill after calling premium rate numbers. Ofcom hopes that in the battle to make things clearer for users, phone companies will properly outline the full charges.

The CEO of 3 made this statement regarding the change ““We asked people what frustrated them most about their mobile bills and confusion around the cost of calling 08 numbers came out top by a big margin.”

3 have really shown their dedication to its customers wants and needs by making this change, and we hope that other providers step forward to match 3’s offer. 

Help the Environment and Save Yourself Cash

As the mobile phone industry booms, more and more people are regularly after the latest handset available on the market. This is great news for mobile phone companies, however what happens to your old phone once you have upgraded your handset? Is it left in a drawer? Or even thrown away?

Recycling your old mobile phone has never been more imperative – not only can you get some cash for your old handset; you can also help the environment one small step at a time.

E-waste, or also known as electronic waste, is quickly becoming a massively talked about subject online and offline. A study done by the US Environmental Protection agency shows that 11% of the e-waste we produce is solely mobile phones. The good news is, this figure is slowly dropping year by year, and we hope eventually that none of the electronic waste we produce is mobile phone related. All of us contribute to this figure, if we don’t recycle. We should all be looking at how we can tackle our waste proactively.

You can help the environment by looking into recycling all electronic goods that you are no longer using. Each time you upgrade your handset (or anyone in your household does!) you should always look at recycling your old model at the same time. If everybody took these simple steps when getting rid of an old mobile phone, then hopefully we can lessen the amount of e-waste we are producing. Over time each step towards a greener earth with benefit us all.

So make money, save the planet and be green by recycling your mobile phone!

Mobile Phone Recycling

In this day and age, mobile phone recycling has never been more important. It’s estimated that only 10% of our electronic items get recycled per year, and anything we can do to increase that amount is beneficial to all of us. It’s tricky to estimate how many mobile users there are exactly in the UK, as many of us have multiple phones, as well as old phones left in the drawer, and pay as you go deals. The last estimate at mobile phones in the UK, at any given time, was placed at a staggering 90 million. However, as this study was conducted a couple of years ago, the amount could be a lot more than we think. If any of these mobiles aren’t disposed of correctly, it could lead to serious problems for our planet, further down the line.

If all those phones were simply thrown away in a landfill site, we would cause irreparable damage to our land. Some of the components in our mobiles are toxic, such as lead and arsenic. These can absorb into our soil and cause issues for generations to come. If any of those toxic chemicals seeped in our soil, crops and plat life would be massively affected. As well as being beneficial for the planet, there are legitimate safety reasons as to why you should not throw your old phone away. Some components have been found extremely dangerous, and some of these are listed in the 10 most dangerous substances known to man. Taking this into account, it has never been more imperative to recycle mobile phones.

You can recycle any type of mobile phone, the better the make and model - the more money you will receive for recycling. Even if your phone has been liquid damaged, or dropped, you can still recycle.

For more information on mobile phone recycling, visit our website for more information.

Sony Unveils Xperia Z2 In Barcelona

Xperia Z2, the latest flagship Android smartphone from Japanese electronics giant Sony, made its debut at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the company announced on its website.

Alongside the Z2 smartphone, Sony also presented the 10.1-inch Xperia Z2 tablet, which is lighter and thinner than the iPad Air.

The Z2 is 8.2 mm thick and has a 5.2-inch LED display. It is slightly slimmer than Sony's previous model – the 5-inch Xperia Z1. The device is capable of recording 4K video and its high camera resolution is its most prominent feature, as it cannot be found on any other Sony smartphone device: it is four times that of a full HD at 3840 x 2160. The smartphone's camera button allows users to easily open the software, and the device can even take pictures when submerged in water, according to Sony.

The camera of the Z2 is the same as its predecessor, the Z1; they share the same 20.7MP rear-facing camera with only the shooting capabilities having been refined.

The Xperia Z2 has a quad-core 2.3 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor with Krait CPUs and 3GB of RAM. The smartphone is powered by a 3,200 mAh battery and is also 4G enabled.

The new model is dust-resistant, water-resistant to a depth of 1.5 metres and can stay in water for up to half an hour, as the device is IP55 and IP58 certified, the Japanese company states.

Sony also says that the Z2 has a more comfortable touch compared to the Z1, as the glass panels are encased in one aluminium frame with smoother edges.

The Xperia Z2 will be up for grabs next month and will be available in black, white and purple.

For more information visit Our Website

Phone Battery Recycling Targets Need To Improve

Recycling electronic devices, including the lithium-ion batteries of mobiles and smartphones, is essential for sustainability, as they contain a surprising amount of precious metals and other materials. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of rechargeable batteries are being recycled in Europe: according to EU figures for 2010, released by Friends of the Earth, just 1,289 tonnes of batteries were collected for recycling, amounting to only 4-5% of the number of batteries sold in the same 12-month period. The good news is that very few batteries end up in landfills due to various regulations in place, but the bad news is that they are most often left in a drawer – unused, but also not recycled.

Lithium-ion batteries contain mostly cobalt, which constitutes 10% to 20% of the component, as well as nickel, copper and aluminium. The recycling process involves melting these metals into an alloy. According to the largest lithium-ion battery recycling firm in Europe – Umicore – the process for recovering metals has a 90% smaller ecological footprint than the initial mining process. The head of battery recycling at Umicore, Sybolt Brouwer, calls this urban mining and claims that the precious metal content in mobile phones is around 100 times higher than the content found in the ground. Urban mining, however, remains largely unexplored and valuable resources get lost.

The measures currently in use by the recycling industry are bring-back schemes and drop-bins specifically for batteries. Often batteries are disposed of together with the main body of the telephone and get separated at a later stage in the recycling process. European directives are being reviewed in view of raising battery recycling targets to 65% of mobile phone sales. This year's target is for 30% of all batteries sold to be recycled, and next year's target is 35%.

Recycling Rates In UK "Stagnating"

Household recycling in the UK has been "stagnating", according to an industry expert commenting on the latest official statistics from Defra. The figures showed that households are sending more waste to landfills for incineration; this indicates that the UK may not be able to reach the EU target of recycling half its waste by 2020.

According to the data released at the beginning of February, household waste recycling in England in the 12 months leading to June last year stood at 43.3%, a very slight increase from just above 43% in March 2012. The quarterly recycling rate, which can be seasonal in nature, reached 46.2% between April and June 2013 – the highest rate reached for this particular three-month period.

At the same time, waste managed by local authorities that went to landfills or incinerators went up 1.3% between April and June 2013 compared with the previous year. This figure is still 32% below the level for the same period in 2006. Household waste arisings stayed at a stable 22.7 million tonnes in the year to June 2013; previous years had seen this figure drop steadily by 10% in 2008, 2009 and 2010..

Rob Crumbie, communications director at recycling rewards company Greenredeem, said that although the figures are going up, the rate of change is minimal. A recent survey by Greenredeem showed that 64% of Britons feel the current schemes aimed at incentivising consumers to recycle are not working as they should. The government should work together with local authorities and environmental campaigners to help the UK reach the targets set by the EU, he said.

For more information on mobile phone recycling, visit the FoneHub website.

Recycling Firm To Build £25M Glass Recycling Plant

Recycling company Viridor has announced plans to build a £25-million plant in Scotland, where it will be able to process 200,000 tonnes of glass a year – the equivalent of 150% of all glass packaging that is currently collected in Scotland. The company hopes that the plant will reduce the necessity for importing glass in industries such as whisky production. Viridor has said the facility, which will be located at Newhouse in Lanarkshire, will be the most advanced in Europe.

The company already has a £100-million recycling network in Scotland, with this latest investment working towards bringing a £500-million nationwide strategy to implement a zero waste policy into practice. Commenting on the news, Viridor's chief executive Ian McAulay said the new plant will support the sustainability of the whisky production industry and associated areas. The director of operational and technical affairs for the Scotch Whisky Association, Julie Hesketh-Laird, said that whisky distillers in Scotland are committed to achieving a 40% proportion of packaging coming from recycled glass by 2020. Since glass is the main form of packaging for Scotch whisky, the industry welcomes any innovation in the supply chain that will improve the rate of glass recycling.

According to statistical data, approximately 1.65 million tonnes of glass containers were recycled in 2008, while the overall production of glass bottles and jars in the country stood at four million tonnes for the same year. These contained an average of 30% recycled glass.

For more information on the mobile phone recycling services that FoneHub offer visit our website or call us on 0207 377 66 44

The Best Smartphones To Be Released This Year

Smartphone technology is evolving rapidly and the new year is set to bring a number of devices with better screens, smoother operating systems and individual features to make the new devices even more appealing to consumers.

First on the list is the HTC M8, which is expected to come on the market in the spring, featuring a five-inch 1080p HD screen, a Snapdragon 800 processor, a 2GB RAM, and a 2.1-megapixel front camera. The device will run on Android's Kitkat.

Samsung Galaxy S5 is another new smartphone we can anticipate this year, perhaps around April. No specific features have been yet unveiled, but sector experts bet on a 64-bit operating system, to match the 64-bit CPU. There have been rumours that the Galaxy S5 will have a 16MP camera and a 4K screen, which will make it unique among smartphones.

Nokia Lumia 1820 is the next entry on the list, set to keep its place as the smartphone with the best camera with its Lytro-style device that allows you to refocus a picture after it has been taken.

The iPhone 6, whose release is only rumoured for now, is expected to introduce some notable changes, such as a curved screen, since Apple has declared interest in the technology, or maybe gesture technology, after Apple bought the company that makes the Microsoft Kinect gesture control system. The new iPhone could be on the market in September.

Blackberry, which has been struggling recently, is betting on two new models, the Q30 and the Z50, with the latter rumoured to sport a 5.2-inch screen with 1080p HD resolution, plus a quad-core processor.

Report Claims UK Recycles More Plastics Than Official Figures Suggest

A report that was commissioned by the British Plastics Federation's (BPF) Recycling Group has suggested that the amount of plastics packaging that government figures claim enters the market every year are majorly overstated by 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes.

Compiled in response to a request for corroboration of recycling rates that came from the Advisory Committee on Packaging, the report analysed the National packaging Waste Database and came up with a total figure of 2.5 million for the amount of plastics packaging placed on the market at present. Although the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) estimates a growth rate of 2.5% for this kind of packaging, the BPF Recycling Group says this is an overstatement, with NPWD data showing almost no growth in the period 2006 to 2012, after which a decline followed.

What this means is that reports about plastics recycling in the UK that have been sent to the European Union have been understated and have led to setting business targets based on mistaken information, which could have increased costs. What's more, with the European Union planning to increase the recycling targets for member states in the next couple of years, UK businesses could be put in a disadvantaged position compared to other member states. The chairman of BPF's Recycling Group commented that giving businesses an accurate baseline, according to which recycling targets are calculated, is essential in order to avoid distorted compliance costs for enterprises.

Fonehub can help you do your part for the environment through mobile phone recycling.

UK Company Builds First Plant For Mechanical Recycling Of LCD Displays

In December, Electrical Waste Recycling Group Ltd. (EWRG) said that it had obtained the approval of the Environment Agency to build the first recycling plant in the world that will process flat screen displays mechanically. The 100,000 square foot facility will be located in Huddersfield, Recycling Today reported.

Mechanical processing will significantly reduce the time needed for the reassembling of a flat screen; currently, manual disassembling takes around 15 minutes per display, while the mechanical process will bring this down to six seconds. This, according to Electrical Waste Recycling Group, is quicker and safer than other processes.

Commenting on the news, the company's managing director, Keith Patterson, said that extensive trials were conducted to ascertain the advantages of the new processing technology, and expressed hopes that the amount of screens to be processed at the plant will justify the investment. This is very likely, taken that the number of LCD screens thrown away every month stands at around one million. EWRG is currently awaiting a patent, and there are plans to replicate the recycling process at other locations in the country as well.

Flat TV screens and computer monitors contain mercury, a hazardous material, in the fluorescent lights. If the monitors are disposed of in landfills, it could leak into the soil and underground water. Industry experts advise that electronic equipment companies should start making more durable products with fewer toxic components. Unfortunately, for the time being, things are going in the opposite direction, which calls for the design of new recycling technologies.

For more information on the mobile phone recycling services that FoneHub provide, please visit our website.

Britain Approves PV Recycling EU Regulation

Late last year, the UK approved the European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, and it came into force ahead of schedule on 1 January this year, a move that was praised by European recycling organisation PV Cycle.

Under the new directive, all photovoltaic modules that have reached the end of their lifespan, whether due to damage or because of warranty expiration must be disposed of appropriately. PV Cycle helps with the process, since standard regulation about the disposal of electric and electronic waste generally concerns household appliances and other consumer products, while PV modules are mostly used by businesses. These modules have a longer lifespan than consumer products, says David Burton, country manager of producer compliance scheme for PV Cycle UK.

The UK Department of Business, Skills and Innovation has been very helpful in the matter, consulting the photo-voltaic panel production sector in order to make sure that waste disposal is conducted appropriately and without harming the industry's long-term sustainability plans.

Under the new directive, all PV panel importers to the UK will need to register under a product compliance scheme, which requires them to take full financial responsibility for disposing of the expired panels they have sold on the market, as well as to report all relevant information, including locations of the panels sold and their numbers.

The WEEE Directive was amended to include PV modules in August 2012, and the industry had an 18-month period to become compliant with it before the national governments of the EU's 27 members incorporated the directive into their legislation.

For more information on the mobile phone recycling services that FoneHub offer then visit our website.

37,000 Brits Take Part In Tesco/Coca-Cola Recycling Campaign

An online campaign carried out by Tesco and Coca-Cola has drawn pledges from 37,000 people to recycle and be rewarded either with a 50p discount voucher for a number of Coca-Cola products or 25 bonus Tesco Clubcard points.

The campaign, called Together We're Making Recycling Count, was launched with its own website in June 2013. The site featured information about how to recycle along with a video from Coca-Cola demonstrating the company's recycling procedure. The campaign reached a large audience, with more than seven million consumers viewing the recycling messages on Tesco's main website, Tesco.com.

Among the people taking part in the campaign, around two-thirds of those who previously admitted they never recycle revealed in follow-up e-mails that they now always or almost always recycle. Interviews were made with those pledging to recycle, revealing an improved understanding of the wider environmental implications of recycling and the positive effect of the campaign.

Both Coca-Cola and Tesco said they were very happy with the results of their initiative and the chance it gave them to share recycling tips and other information with their customers. According to Nick Canney, sales and marketing vice-president of Coca-Cola, such initiatives have proved to be a powerful tool in addressing at-home recycling issues and encouraging people to do it. It has also shown to be invaluable in raising awareness among customers about the necessity of recycling, he added.

According to information from the British Plastics Federation, packaging accounts for the largest part of Britons' plastic consumption, with a 38% share of the total.

For more information on Mobile Phone Recycling please visit the FoneHub Website.