Too Many Cells

The latest thing about cell phones to amaze me is about is the proliferation of cell phones for sale. There are new cell phones for sale every day, each with a new feature to lure the addicted cell nut into tossing away his or herperfectly good phone for one of the newer models. In this country owning a cell phone is like owning underwear. They are now considered disposable products, and that is not so good "environmentally".
Every day the media promotes the latest cell phone gadget and implies that those who don't constantly update their phones with a newer modelare somehow out of touch with fashion. If Microsoft was bad about squeezing money from customers with constant updates when Windows wasfirst introduced, cell phone sellers are even worse.
In the U.S an estimated 150 million cell phones are taken out of service each year. The phones contain metals, plastics, glass and chemicals, all of which require energy to mine and make, and many of which could be hazardous if they end up in landfills and leach into the ground. But, many old cell phones still work and can be donated to charities or distributed to poor people. Yet, they are not because children (the cell nuts who have to have the latest trendy phone) just toss them like trash when they see the newest ones advertised for sale.
The flood of phones is such a problem environmentally that the Environmental Protection Agency of the U.S. government has started a “Recycle Your Cell phone. It's an Easy Call” campaign. It relies heavily on public service announcements, particularly in lifestyle and technology magazines read by the 18- to 34-year-olds who trade up to new cell phones most often. The ads will stress environmental and social reasons for recycling and maybe hint that it is obsessive behavior to change phones for newer ones so often when the current phone is working very well.
The EPA says it would schedule several cell phone collections in 2008 and would post a search able list of cell phone drop-off centers on Web sites, including epa.gov. It will also distribute posters with the advice that “It's an easy call” to cell providers and sellers, and post it over cell phone drop-off bins.
Hmmmmmmmmm You know I like this idea. the huge number of those phones produces a great deal of environmental waste. so why not recycle them to less addictive cell users who don't feel an a biding need to have the latest gadget on their phone. Too, the phones that cannot be reused are stripped of parts, and the shells sold to a recycler who extracts metals. Cell phones are just the tip of the electronic waste iceberg now, but they could become a massiveenvironmental problem, unlike phone causes like global warming that have captured the imagination of many people worldwide. Controlling cell phone waste and excess something real that humans can do while they pretend they are actually "warming the earth". A real human problem would get attention rather than an imaginary one....