October is cellphone recycling month, bringing the chance to win an iPhone 15 and other perks for turning in old phones, the Ministry of Environment announced on Tuesday.
This is the fifth year the agency is organizing a phone recycling drive, Resource Circulation Administration Director Lai Ying-ying (賴瑩瑩) told an event in Taipei.
Whereas previous years were only about recycling, this year the event is to emphasize the cellphone cycle and reuse of rare earth metals, she said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Environment
This includes a set of rules being drafted to encourage phone importers and manufacturers to promote recycling and repairs, Lai said.
The event running from Sunday to Oct. 31 is to offer NT$300,000 worth of prizes for recycling old phones, including five iPhone 15s, the agency said.
Participants are to receive one raffle ticket for every phone turned in, and an extra ticket for every third phone, it said.
A ministry survey found that 34 percent of people who do not recycle their old phones avoid it because of limited incentives, while 28 percent said it is inconvenient and about 10 percent are concerned about their personal information, administration Deputy Director Wang Yueh-bin (王嶽斌) said.
Next month’s event is therefore going to focus on making it more convenient and worthwhile to recycle, and offer help deleting data, he said.
Nearly 13,500 locations are participating in the drive, including telecoms, convenience stores, phone retailers and supermarkets, the agency said.
The goal is to recycle at least 80,000 phones by the end of the month, it added.
About 23,000 phones were recycled the first time the event was held in October 2019, nearly tripling to 72,000 last year.
Last year a total of 730,000 phones were recycled, ministry data showed.
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