Sustainability
Recyling kicks off in India
By James on 06 January 2009
INDIA – We wrote previously about Nokia’s recycling survey conducted last year, and Charlie picked up on it again with his Best of 2008 piece over the holidays. Now Nokia India has taken up the baton and launched an initiative to drive awareness of recycling old handsets across the country. 1300 Nokia care centres and priority dealers are being equipped with recycling bins to take back old devices, regardless of who made them, before being taken away to be disposed of properly.
When the recycling survey was done, India came bottom of the list with poor awareness amongst users that devices could, and should, be recycled. Only 17 per cent of those surveyed in India knew about device recycling.
To aid the task of driving awareness, Nokia India will be planting a tree for every device recycled. There’ll also be a host of gifts on offer to further entice consumers to get involved.
In some ways the lack of awareness doesn’t surprise me. Whilst it’s at best average in developed countries, in developing ones I’d expect recycling to be a bit further down the list when it comes to things people think about.
For my money though, this still isn’t tackling the inherent problem with encouraging people to recycle their old devices. Sure, raising awareness is a good thing, and facilitating the process is a more than welcome move. But, and it’s a big BUT, how do we actually get people to change their mindsets when it comes to recycling electronic devices?
I wrote previously of how I personally was guilty of hoarding old devices in cupboards. Even since writing about it (and in the process becoming utterly aware) all I’ve – ashamedly – managed to do is gather up those devices I definitely no longer need and get them ready to take them somewhere. But where?
Could I just walk into any phone store and drop them there? Does it even need to be a phone store? Could it be any electronics retailer? Perhaps it should. Regardless, the devices are still languishing in a cupboard, only now they’re gathered together in a bag. Duh.
And I still don’t know the answer. Right now all I’m certain of is whilst Nokia’s making great strides to make people aware, the work it alone is doing might not be enough to get those same people to change their habits. It is of course a good start, but the final solution?
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January 6th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
If India did come at the bottom of the survey, then the agency that did the survey in India obviously did not know anything about Indian culture. Also they did not bother to even understand what recycling really means in India.
“Everything gets reused multiple times and recycled in unusual ways in India”. This is usually far more efficient than anything west has ever seen.
For example, if a person buys a new phone, an old phone is either traded back or given to a family member (documented through numerous user research projects in India!).
If the traded phone is not in perfect working condition, it is sent for repairs and then sold again as pre-owned phone — India has a very huge pre-owned phones market.
During many such recycles, the phones changes shape and gets newer parts, while older parts either get used up in other products — the silicon keypads may end up as a packing material or a plastic cover may be re-melted to make a bucket!
On one hand it is great to have recycling units in India, but on the other hand it may not work as people will rather sell the phone back for a heavy discount on the current purchase or give the phone away to a family member.
“Could I just walk into any phone store and drop them there? Does it even need to be a phone store? Could it be any electronics retailer? Perhaps it should. Regardless, the devices are still languishing in a cupboard, only now they’re gathered together in a bag. Duh.”
You can walk into ANY phone store and exchange or sell your old phone in India. And, there are phone stores everywhere in India, you really don’t need to find them, they are ubiquitous. Most electronic stores in India do sell mobile phones, and they also do take back any phones.
I would love to know how many phones did Nokia manage to get in the recycle center?
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January 6th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Rhanks Ripul. I think the survey was focussed very much on recycling rather than reuse. Prolonging the lifespan of a phone is always a good thing and no better way than through reuse.
For recycling though, perhaps what you outlined could/should be a model better utilised elsewhere – I could see the concept of a trade in working as an incentive. Old devices don’t necessarily need to be traded in against devices either – airtime credits could work just as well don’t you think?
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January 6th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Old devices in India are either sold or traded in. In effect you can trade in for other goods or services that are available in that shop including airtime.
Old mobile phones are reused and resold over and over again. They are repaired by some amazing guys who run some very efficient and cheap repair shops in every city. You can still find people using 10 year old Nokia phones here in India.
It is impossible to find a television, computer, refrigerator, air conditioner, or a mobile phone in a dump yard.
Many plastic bottles, carry bags, or other plastic material gets picked up from the dump yard by rag pickers and sold in market for re-use in another form or sold for recycling.
One of the most amazing example of reuse is the used “Tropicana” juice boxes reused as a shopping bag! There are tonnes of examples of reuse.
It is just too funny to know that India is at the bottom of the recycle list.
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January 7th, 2009 at 10:05 am
I think Ripul’s comments have effectively invalidated the Nokia survey which appears to be flawed. We need to be very careful when framing any form of survey, particularly global ones that cross many linguistic and cultural boundaries, and this one appears to have been too narrowly focused or at least contextually unclear. It is important to test and validate the results of any survey and with centrally conducted global surveys there is always a danger that everything is interpreted through a single corporate lens, in this case probably Finnish! I would suggest Nokia takes another look at the results and its interpretation of them before launching initiatives that at best are irrelevant or worse, damaging to existing effective eco practices.
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January 8th, 2009 at 12:50 am
I agree James, people allways remember about recycling paper, plastic, etc., but electronic stuff are allways forgotten, like old mobiles, computers, etc.
But I also agree with Rimul, a lot of people should do it’s marketing homework and get to know more about someone’s culture, before saying those things. ^^
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January 8th, 2009 at 12:52 am
Recycling obviously is the best choice to take, but reusing isn0t bad at all. Before people used to reuse clothes, etc., so why throw away a mobile phone to the trash, if there are other people who can’t buy a new one, so then, they could use that old one? Think about it.
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