Safaricom Launches Cellphone Re-Cycling Plan

Safaricom has launched an ambitious program to recycle phones. The scheme will be administered in partnership with Computers for Schools Kenya (CSK), which already runs a similar program for old computers.

These include a handbook which is meant to sensitize Safaricom staff and customers on BTSs (Base Transceiver Stations), handsets and how they relate to personal health. Titled The Answer is in your hand: mobile phones, masts and your health, the handbook shall be a quick reference guide on such topics as radio frequency waves, guidelines for exposure, definition of a BTS, children and mobile phones, radio frequency exposure and 3G base stations and use of mobile phones in hospitals and airplanes.

Safaricom also announced plans to undertake a carbon footprint analysis and carbon trading whose end result will be a sustainability report.

To benefit from the recycling initiative, customers will be expected to hand over their old mobile handsets and accessories for recycling by CSK in a scheme which hopes to promote the recycling and re-use of old mobile devices that might otherwise end up in garbage dumps and landfills.

The launch of the recycling scheme and other green initiatives underpin a conscious investment by Safaricom in sustainability. Ongoing initiatives include operating from some of Kenya’s most energy-efficient buildings and installations using modern lighting technologies. Significantly, Safaricom has deployed over 50 base stations on a combination of solar-wind-diesel-battery hybrid system, over 30 sites are on enhanced battery-diesel hybrid system and 2 sites on pure green energy (solar-wind-battery-hybrid). All these reduce the running hours of diesel generators by about 67 per cent which proportionately reduces the carbon emission.

HOW THE RECYCLING WORKS:

1. It is free and easy to recycle your old Mobile phone and phone accessories that have reached their end of life.
2. Simply remove all personal information from your old phone.
3. Drop it off at any Safaricom building or retail store in a special box positioned at the designated area.
4. The collectors shall accept all brands and models of Mobile phones, batteries, PDAs (personal digital assistant), and accessories for recycling.

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