Be Green With Your Mobile

December 31st, 2008

For Seth Heine, new is good but used is even better.  The founder of GreenPhone, he has created a cellphone recycling business that’s also good for the planet.

It’s not hard to see why a company like GreenPhone is absolutely necessary.  The numbers are staggering:

There are more than 1 billion used mobile phones in the US sitting on shelves or in our landfills, and another 160 million + will be added to the shelves or landfills this year alone! The problem is growing at a rate of more than 3 million phones per week, putting tons of toxic waste into our landfills daily.

“We make great consumers,” says Seth.  “But a lot of people don’t recycle.”

The formula is simple: sell your used phone to GreenPhone and they’ll pay you a competitive rate.  The beauty of it is that they can pay you via Obopay, a person-to-person mobile money transfer service.  In short:  sell your old phone, get paid on your new phone.  The process of recycling comes full circle.

“We partnered with Obopay to help cement the notion that there’s money in cellphones,” explains Seth.

And he’s not kidding.  Literally, the idea of getting paid for your old phone on your new phone means you can convert that old phone back into money.

“At some point, this will be big — the notion of using the cellphone as a wallet,” says Seth.  “Early on, Obopay made great gains in the race.  I just like the technology.  It makes sense to me.”

Seth got his inspiration for the business while he was a mobile phone consultant in Brazil.  When he saw, incredibly, how cellphones were being thrown away – just 125 years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone – he asked himself the question:  “how do you get people to recycle phones?”

Back in the states, Seth worked out the kinks through several business ventures until arriving at his latest – GreenPhone.

If you have any old mobile phones sitting around, consider recycling it with GreenPhone. They expect your phone to be used but in decent condition.  If it’s brand new, they’ll pay a bonus value.  The point is to keep that cellphone out of the landfill and put more cash in your pocket, giving you a return on your investment.

Many of GreenPhone’s refurbished phones end up in developing countries, providing affordable communications and helping bridge the digital divide. What’s more, GreenPhone will plant a tree for every mobile that’s processed.

It’s a win-win for everybody that leaves a legacy for the planet.

Did you get a new phone for Xmas?  Recycle your old one and get paid via Obopay.

Seth is also the founder of CollectiveGood, which is GreenPhone’s parent company.  At CollectiveGood you can recycle electronics or donate the proceeds from your recycled phone to select charities.

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