The campaign will thus succeed in breaking the previous record of 4,462 phones from 2019. Individuals, companies, spring cleaning organizers and visitors to more than a hundred T-Mobile stores throughout the Czech Republic have joined ReRekord. Retired phones could be handed over directly at T-Mobile stores and buildings – a total of 482 of them were collected there. Other pieces were handed over to the organizers of cleaning events as part of Clean Up the Czech Republic or sent free of charge via Zásilkovna to Remobil. At the same time, participants had the opportunity to compete for valuable prizes.
"We bring top-quality devices of our own brand and other manufacturers to the market. At the same time, we perceive a great responsibility to minimize the impacts of their consumption. That is why we have been supporting Remobil in its mission since 2023. This year, thanks to the partnership with Ukliďme Česko, we managed to connect the collection of used electronics with volunteer help to nature and thus benefit the environment twice," says Martin Orgoník, Head of External Communication and Sustainability at T-Mobile. "At the same time, our employees were also involved in the cleaning – together we cleaned a piece of the landscape in Milovice."
Sustainability is a long-term topic for T-Mobile even outside of today's Earth Day – for example, it has achieved climate neutrality in its operations and energy from RES is used for the operation of the network. The operator also collects phones for Remobil all year round. Last year, a total of 51,744 phones were collected, of which 3,813 were collected at stores and events co-organized by T-Mobile, such as the Colours of Ostrava music festival – there alone, visitors brought over 1,000 used devices to the T-Mobile collection box. In total, recycling led to savings of up to 136 tons of CO₂ emissions and 1.90 million liters of water last year.
"There are about 12 million unused phones in the drawers of Czech households, and another 400,000 are added every year. Our goal is to spread awareness that even an old phone can still play a great ecological role and that each piece makes sense – over 100 kg of raw materials are needed to make it. Thanks to recycling, these will not be wasted. T-Mobile helps us create conditions for people to be more involved in recycling," says Miloš Polák, founder of the Remobil project.
"We would like to thank our partner organizations and everyone who joined ReRekord and helped turn old phones into concrete support for volunteers. Our cleaning events attract hundreds of thousands of volunteers every year – we use the proceeds from the collection of phones to buy and distribute bags, work gloves and other necessary equipment. In addition to recycling, people have also contributed to cleaner nature and public space," says Miroslav Kubásek, co-founder of the Ukliďme Česko project.
Recycling also has a social dimension – manual dismantling of phones helps create sheltered jobs for people with disabilities, and Remobil donates CZK 10 for each mobile phone to support charitable projects – for example, the construction of a cottage for children from the Jedlička Institute and schools.