Recycling handsets

We participate in Fonebak®, our recycling scheme for redundant mobile phones. Last year we donated a proportion of the proceeds to our UK charity partner Milly's Fund and to Rainforest Concern, supporting its work to protect endangered Ecuadorian forests and to raise awareness of global warming.

There was a marked drop in recovered phones during the year. There are many reasons for this: we now compete with other retailers, charities and community groups who have launched their own phone recycling schemes. In addition, more old phones are sold directly on the second-hand market. Our expectations of recycling are now more realistic, but we are determined to continue to drive our scheme.

This year we introduced recycling bags with products bought from our online shops, embarked on a PR campaign to recover phones from our employees, and started to encourage our employees to include their friends and families in the Fonebak® scheme.

About 40 of our corporate customers also support the Fonebak® scheme and we are helping them to adopt schemes of their own.