Literature review.

MOA – Mobile Operators Association (http://www.mobilemastinfo.com) have produced figures showing that between the years 1987 to 2009 the number of mobile phone subscriptions per year has raised from 1 million in 1987 to over 65 million in just 22 years. Vodafone’s website (http://www.vodafone.com ) has expressed that there is still pollution from mobile phone manufactures in terms of the materials used and how they are extracted, Mark Kinver from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/) did an investigation into mobile phones and there environmental affects and came to the same conclusion as Vodafone in that hazardous materials are still being produced to make these phones and the manufacture of these materials is causing environmental harm Green Mobile (http://www.greenmobile.co.uk) produced figures on their website stating around 100,000 mobile phones are bought in Europe each year with only around 15% of this number being recycled, Mark Kniver then goes on to describe how new directives are being produced and followed to lower these pollution problems. The website Moldava (Moldava.org) produced an article on their website explaining how the mobile phone manufactures Nokia and Motorola are aiming to reduce their overall production emissions, reduce the amount of hazardous materials used in their phones and provide better recycling schemes for old handsets. Even though large companies such as Nokia and Motorola are expressing their concerns about the pollution they cause the website ARP – Aussie Recycling Programme (http://www.arp.net.au/envcha.php) which is based in Australia produced an article describing how these old mobile phones will be need to be recycled properly as many of the hazardous components used as explained on Vodafone’s website and the BBC report have to be handled with care, ARP describe concern over matters such as correct disposal of phones batteries than can be dangerous if not handled correctly. The website (http://www.mobiles.co.uk/weee.html) stated that WEEE regulations in Europe have also been enforced to require electronic good’s companies to set up recycling schemes for their old products. An example of this is Mobile Muster based in Australia (http://www.mobilemuster.com.au/quick_facts) who has a number of collection points around the country to take peoples old handsets.