- People exchanged their old handsets for top-up coupons worth nearly CZK 250,000
- The initiative will support a gorilla rescue project
Prague, 24 August 2010 - T-Mobile's summer project aimed at collecting and recycling old mobile handsets has come to a successful end. People could bring their obsolete handsets to T-Mobile shops and receive a CZK 100 top-up coupon in return. In five weeks, 2,379 unused handsets were collected.
"Thanks to the great interest of our customers, the project finished earlier than we expected, as we ran out of top-up coupons," said Jitka Chocová, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at T-Mobile, adding: "In five weeks people returned nearly 2,500 old mobile phones, whereas last year in total only 1,754 handsets were collected."
T-Mobile started the initiative at the Rock for People festival, where music fans handed in 355 handsets in four days. Since 15 July, another 2,379 handsets have been collected at T-Mobile shops. In total, T-Mobile has collected 2,734 mobile phones during the summer.
The vast majority of all handsets are less than five years old. However, they also include rare pieces, such as Alcatel HC500 from 1996. Although this handset is not able to send an SMS or identify an incoming call, back then it cost CZK 12,000.
The most active were customers from big cities: coupons were no longer available as early as at the end of July at selected T-Mobile shops in Prague, Pardubice, Hradec Králové, Chomutov, Teplice, Trutnov and Tábor, whereas the remaining shops ran out of coupons in August.
By handing in obsolete mobile phones, customers not only helped to recycle their handsets the right way, but also supported a gorilla rescue project in Africa. This project was launched by the Prague zoo this year in cooperation with REMA Systém, a company dealing with environmental disposal of electronic waste. Extraction of raw materials used in the production of mobile handsets and MP3 players plays a significant role in the continuing reduction of these animals' natural habitat. REMA Systém will therefore contribute CZK 10 to the gorilla rescue project for each returned handset.