[kerrywearsbotox]

Great story about new ways to dispose of old mobile phones.

[Fierce Allegiance]

OH, don't claim that heavy metals cause health hazards - some (a small but ignorant minority) will call you a pinko enviro-fag.

[EggsAckley]

consumers buy a new one about every year and a half

This is mind boggling to me. I have owned a total of two cell phones over the past fifteen years. Why do they need new ones so often?

[rellimpank]

----yeah---the end of civilization is near because of the disposal of old phones--not.

If I need to dispose of one , I'll put it right next to the dead flashlight batteries that I make a point of putting in the trash---

[technomage]

as old mobile phones start to fill up garbage dumps across the United States

Notice the statement that it is mobile phones that are filling up garbage dumps across the USA. What a crock!

These people that write these articles really have no clue to how brain-dead they appear.

[asgardshill]

They're right - old mobile phones ARE a health hazard. You can throw out your back trying to lift them up to your mouth to talk.

[LauraleeBraswell]

Its nice to hear of an environmental group what works with Industrial technology to find more environmentally friendly alternatives.

[martin_fierro]

My old-but-faithful Treo 300.

[StACase]

G O L D !

Really?

[crv16]

Please, give me a break. Dumping an old phone in the trash adds about 0.000000000001% to the solid waste stream. Aren't there slightly more pressing things libs need to worry about?

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[Carry_Okie]

Experts told UPI's Wireless World this pattern is starting to become a major environmental issue, as old mobile phones start to fill up garbage dumps across the United States and leach lead, arsenic, gold and other toxins into the groundwater.

Leaching gold? Are they kidding? Pray tell, unless there's a healthy flow of aqua regia in the groundwater, how would that happen? Further, seeing as groundwater pollution from lead hasn't been detected in Gettysburg of Verdun, what do you think the likelihood of that is from cellphones?

This is nothing more than a scam.

[Tallguy]

Cell phones are a very successful consumer product; electric cars are as yet an unsuccessful product that is favored by government & enviromentalist groups. Both use batteries that, if not disposed of properly, will cause problems at landfills. Guess which product catches all the heat?

[gg188]

I calculate roughly that a billion cell phones, stacked three feet high, would take up an area about the size of 10 football fields.

That's not a lot of space. That's one of the many problems w/ envirowackos---the world is large, and all the refuse for the next century in total takes up only a tiny bit of the area of the surface of the earth. Assuming the stuff is bad and will all go directly into the water, how can ten football fields amount to any measurable difference when you consider all the water on earth? What would that be---one part-per-gazillion?

Of course, these are the same people who tell us the end is near due to global warming, and are the same people who told us 30 years ago the end was near due to the coming ice age, that we were going to run out of oil by 1980, out of food by 1990, Supply side economics would wreck the economy, taxcuts would end civilization as we know it, we all descended from apes, homosexuals are born that way, yadayadayada....With the track record of academia, why would anyone believe a word they say?

[NCSteve]

I guess cell phones are made from some breakthrough technology that involves different materials than any other electronic device. Of course, only cell phones are the problem. All the old Sony betamax tape recorders, Commodore 64s, Atari 2600s, and Nintendo game controllers have nothing to do with this.

The really sad thing is how many people will read this and just believe it unquestioningly.

[Question_Assumptions]

Gold is not a toxin. That's why they put it into people's mouths for fillings. Of course they also put mercury into people's mouths for fillings...

[AngryJawa]

This POS on my belt isn't going to the dump when it's time to upgrade. It's going to the pistol range (sans battery, of course).

I so look forward to its demise. 8^)

[bvw]

Why aren't landfills mined?

[Psycho_Bunny]

Great story about new ways to dispose of old mobile phones.

I prefer my way....throwing them at people who piss me off. 

You can impart all sorts of wrist-spin to those little Samsungs.

Great story about new ways to dispose of old mobile phones.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Hmmmm. More dangerous than this new Nokia?