Have you ever considered what happens to your old mobile once you have finished with it? Do you just throw it away, with the rubbish? Or do you act responsibly?

Throwing away that old and no longer needed old mobile might seem an innocent enough act, but have you considered what that is doing to the environment? Take the population of a small town, each person renewing their phone every one or two years and that is thousands of mobiles being thrown out.

Now, scale that up to the whole country and then across all the countries of the world where mobiles are an every day item!

A hazard in disguise in your pocket
Old mobile phones are a hazard to the environment. They may seem weak and fragile in our hands and bags, but the elements that make up a phone will last in the waste for many years.

In fact, some of the components of a mobile can be quite dangerous. Take cadmium, which is counted as the seventh most harmful known chemical! Oh, and it is thought to be carcinogenic.

And even more potential nasties
Your handset will probably also contain lead. This is fine when the mobile is in tact, but as it is damaged and breaks down this harmful metal can be released into the environment.

There are plenty of other components in your innocent looking phone which are totally harmless when it is packaged, but if it is left in a landfill site and allowed to break down, these components can cause dangers and poisoning.

Recycling is the key
So, what is the answer? Well it is quite simple really, recycle the old handset properly. And the best of it is this process is not an expensive process to the end user of the phone. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

Because old mobiles contain so many important components, there are companies that can strip down the old handset, reuse the valuable components and correctly recycle what is left.

There is money in an old mobile
And because there is money in it for them, they are desperate to get the old phones from you! This means that for the right make and model of phone, they are willing to pay you quite a lot of cash in return.

There is a growing industry of phone recycling and it is even extending to third party websites that will tell you which are the best places to go to for recycling your particular make and model of handset!

Save the environment,look after your pocket
If, instead of throwing away your current mobile when you upgrade it to a new model you take a few minutes to find the best price to recycle it, you could be earning yourself quite a tidy sum of cash for your efforts.

And not only is that some extra cash in your pocket, but it is a small danger away from the landfill sites, so you have done both yourself and the environment a huge favour!

Turning your old mobile phone into cash is a great way of earning some extra cash. Why not find out more?

It is very easy to sell your mobile to make a bit of extra cash and it can be well worth the little bit of effort that it takes. You could even find yourself over £300 in pocket on the best priced models. Much better than throwing the old phone in the bin!

Obviously, not every phone is worth as much as this. Some very old phones and those that are totally broken have much less value, maybe even nothing at all. But even an old, battered model can put a little bit of extra spending cash into your pocket.

Sell you phone, with no financial risk
Best of all, these sites that have been set up to recycle your old mobile will do it at no risk of any cost to yourself. You just have to tell them what make and model your handset is and whether it is still working, then they will give you a price for it. If you like the price, then you just pop the phone into the post, freepost of course, and once they have checked out your old, worthless, mobile they return you a payment. Depending on where you use, this can be a cheque of bank transfer.

Get the best price for your phone.
But where do you get the best price for your old phone? Well, as with your insurance, mortgage and other products there are comparison sites. You can actually compare the prices that various buyers of mobile phones will give to you in one quick and easy swoop. When you see a good price, just click to visit the website and arrange for that site to buy your mobile off you.

Why is your mobile worth so much?
This system works because mobile phones, and their insides, are worth so much. The price that you pay when you first buy a new mobile does not actually reflect the price that the handset actually costs. It is heavily subsidised by the network that you are signing up to, which is the reason that many handsets are locked and why the contracts with the cheapest offers for the phones tie you in for the longest durations. They are wanting you to stay with them for a long time so that your monthly charges cover the cost of the phone.

So what do you do?
Write down the make and model of your mobile and then either go to a few phone recycling sites or to a suitable comparison sites and see what prices are on offer for you. Find the best price for your phone and then just follow the instructions to claim your cash.

It is much better than just leaving the old handset in your drawer or throwing it into the bin. For a few minute’s research you could quickly earn yourself a nice bit of extra cash. So turn that old, unwanted phone into cash now!

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If you have an old mobile phone or two hidden away at the back of the drawer, have you thought of the benefits of recycling it? You could help the environment and your pocket in one go!

Many people have not yet realised the advantages of mobile phone recycling. But, there are many reasons for you to discover for yourself why you should be recycling that old mobile.

When you have finished with your mobile and replaced it with the latest model, all is not lost for that old phone. There are parts of the internal workings of the phone that can be recycled and reused by the manufacturers and there are sites that are willing to pay you for the phone to get at these parts. So, even if the phone is broken, falling apart and no longer working, it may still have some value.

At the same time as helping the environment by reusing parts instead of adding to the pile of waste in a landfill site, you are also getting paid for the old phone and this is putting cash in your pocket. How much depends on the age and make of the phone, but it is worth looking into!

Call into one of the many mobile phone recycling sites and find out what your old mobile phone is now worth. You might get a surprise! There are even sites that you can use that will compare the prices on offer across different recycling sites!

But, if these prices are not good enough for you, then there are options. Having said that, for a relatively modern handset the prices on the recycling sites can be very tempting.

If you have an Ebay account, you could also try to auction the old phone there. I have done this and managed to raise quite a respectable price, through a bidding war that broke out on a very old model of mobile, just before the auction closed. But I was lucky, it was a popular handset (in its time) and along with the handset I still had all of the accessories, including quite a good working battery. This was probably cause enough for someone to want to buy it to keep their own cherished phone on the go.

Failing all of this if you just want to recycle it quickly and easily, you could just be generous and donate the old phone to charity and they will then take it to wherever will recycle if for the best price, using the elements of the phone or refurbishing the handset. So you are helping the environment and also a favourite charity.

Personally, if you are recycling your phone, selling it via Ebay or donating it to charity, before you part with it I would plug it into the wall and go through your phone book, removing entries and also clear out all SMS messages, pictures and so on. Just in case the person getting it gets hold of these and then gets up to some mischief! I would also suggest not sending the current SIM card with the phone when you dispose of it, for safety!

Today’s post is sponsored by www.sellmymobile.com, with many thanks to them!

Not everyone realises that the old mobile phone handset currently in your possession could be worth quite a bit to you when you upgrade it to a new one. Do not just throw it away, look into turning it into cash!

There are , at least, three different ways of turning an old, tired, no longer required mobile phone into cash, but instead, many people just leave them in cupboards or throw them away. Apart from the fact that they contain batteries and other elements that are not supposed to be thrown out with the rubbish, this is a great money earning opportunity lost!

Yes, with many handsets the amounts available are not going to make you rich. But a few minutes’ effort can be quickly rewarded with a little extra cash into your pocket. And the reason that this works is that when you first ‘buy’ your new mobile phone the cost of the mobile is heavily subsidised by the network provider that you are buying from. If you look at the cost of the handset with a contract against the same handset without a contract and unlocked, that is how much the subsidy is worth to you.

So, what methods are open to you to turn an unwanted phone into a little spare cash whilst at the same time preventing another electronic device filling up a landfill site somewhere?

The easiest option is to look at mobile phone recycling and here, if your handset is worth anything, is where you are likely to make a tidy sum. Some of the best priced handsets can be worth over £100 when recycled through these schemes, so definitely worth the time it takes too type in the make and model into a few price comparison sites and see who is offering the most. You then just post off the handset to whoever offers the most and they either send you a cheque back or pay you via a bank transfer. Quick, simple and a good amount back.

After that, if the actual handset is not worth that much when it is recycled you can look at online auction sites such as Ebay. I sold a handset there for about £40 that the recyclers were only able to give me pennies for.

The reason for this was I had all of the accessories and people with the same handset would then have a spare battery, recharger and so it. Getting hold of these accessories was probably worth a lot more to them than the value of a cheap phone. It was an amazing bidding war when it broke out with 12 hours to go!

Lastly, I have also sold very old handsets for a few pounds at car boot sales, again probably to people that want them as spare parts rather then as a usable phone. Or maybe they were museum collectors…

Whatever you decide to do, never just throw the old phone away. At the very least there will be charities, schools and organisations who can recycle it for you and take advantage of the cash.

This post sponsored by sellmymobile.com, where you can find prices for when you recycle your mobile phone

Did you know that when you upgrade your current mobile, your old mobile can be worth something still? And we’re not always talking pennies here!

I have just found the price of a phone that I have had in a cupboard for the last two years. The handset itself must have been bought way back in 2004 and although the prices were not exactly going to buy much, there was a notional value to the phone.

And all of those years ago when I bought that mobile, I did then ‘trade in’ my current old mobile by selling it on Ebay. I was surprised then how much people were willing to pay for what was a 5-year old and extremely out of date handset. A bidding war broke out in the last hours and made it a very worth while sale.

But on more modern handsets the components can be worth quite a lot. It is a shame to just throw them away and it is this value that makes charities and other organisations want to collect them for recycling for you.

But what if you ask yourself the question where can you find someone to buy my phone so that you keep the cash? Well, there are plenty of sites willing and able to help you with that and able to do this for you. There are also comparison services that will trawl many of the different recyclers and tell you what the best price is for many handsets.

And you might be surprised in the answers! Looking through one list of prices, all of the top 8 iphone handsets were showing recycling prices of in excess of £200, with the top two having prices of over £300. If you are upgrading from one of these handsets, there is a healthy return in recycling the phone instead of leaving it in a cupboad or throwing it away with the rest of the household rubbish.

Even having a malfunctioning handset does not mean that these amounts are not available to you. Some recyclers will still accept broken handsets and can pay up to 90% of the working price, depending on how much is broken in your phone. So even if your phone is broken, it can still be worth asking one or two websites for a quote and seeing what they will offer you. Even if it only covers a few drinks or a box of chocolates, it is worth while getting the cash instead of throwing it away!

With the number of mobile phone handsets across the country, and the frequency that some people upgrade them with, if we do not recycle phones properly there is going to be an old mobile phone mountain somewhere before long. See it as your duty to recycle your mobile and earn yourself a bit of extra cash. It is easy to do and does not cost you anything. Best of all, if you provide bank details most recyclers will pay the cash straight into your account!

Keith Lunt