Recycling

O2’s businesses in the UK, Ireland and Isle of Man employ Fonebak – a fully managed and complete recycling solution for mobile handsets and accessories, operated by Shields Environmental.

In Germany we have a similar scheme with Green Solutions.

Fonebak is very successful, providing an effective way of recycling old mobile phones and raising funds for our chosen environmental charities.

Since we introduced our handset recycling schemes in 2002, we have recovered over half a million mobile handsets for recycling or reuse. The system guarantees no use of landfill and provides an international recycling infrastructure that’s available to all – our employees, customers and suppliers.

Shields runs a World Recycling Support Programme through which it markets refurbished phones. These initiatives provide a solution for end-of-life Fonebak phones and new phones sold by manufacturers.

Shields’ services include audits of our own suppliers and recycling management, with formal targets and verified public reporting. It also handles any waste from our network-building activities, although here at O2 our equipment is generally upgradeable.

We constantly encourage customers and employees to hand in old phones by depositing them in boxes in our shops and offices or by freepost. We have extended Fonebak to our corporate customers, too. They, in turn, gain from Shields’ principles of preventing and reducing waste through international ISO 14001 controls.

Anyone can use our recycling scheme

You can recycle your mobile phone and mobile accessories by:

Bringing your redundant mobile handset to an O2 shop, or posting it to us using the address:

'Freepost O2 Recycling' (UK only)

O2's recycling partner will either recycle your phone in a carbon-neutral manner or re-sell it in a country where recycling facilities already exist.

O2 will donate generated funds to a local charitable initiative for every phone that you bring in. For example, in Ireland we have partnered with the National Tree Council of Ireland to support tree-planting initiatives.

Fonebak is the first scheme to comply both with current legislation and the forthcoming EU Waste, Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE). The Directive will put the onus on mobile-phone producers and distributors to take back and recycle old handsets responsibly. It will also set targets and require proof that these targets are met.