Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

It’s fully possible to recycle mobile phones. I’ve seen many offers over the years enticing me to sell my own mobile for mobile phone recycling – and it couldn’t be more easy to take these companies up on their offers.

And yet, there are a number of old mobile phones lying about the house at the moment. To see them piled up with the dirty laundry or with dusty, forgotten CD’s is a bit of a shame.

It’s quite easy to recycle them. In many cases, they send you a package, which you slip the phone into and post back to them. And then you get paid. It’s really as simple as that.

I don’t expect mine is the only house with old mobiles left lying around, so it begs the question – why? Why don’t people take more care to sell or dispose of their old or broken phones in a green and reliable manner?

We live in a society that is obsessed with recycling: there are about four different bins on my road for whatever rubbish might accumulate over the course of a week or two. Food rubbish, plastic, cardboard – the list goes on.

And people have taken to the multi-bin approach very well. People recycle their waste and their drink bottles enthusiastically.

So what is it about phones? When I bought my new phone, it even came with a recyclable plastic bag to put my old model in, so there really is no excuse.

Perhaps it’s a matter of publicity. It’s a bit of a struggle to find any stories about recycling services in the news; I suppose it’s entirely reliant on people being proactive and finding out about what’s on offer.