Recycle your Cell Phone and Save Gorilla Habitat

The Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) is starting a cell phone recycling program in the Ellsworth/Mount Desert Island region. ARF is a local nonprofit organization dedicated to helping animals in need of temporary shelter, health care, and permanent homes. You can help these animals by recycling your old cell phone. You will also be helping the lowland gorillas of the Congo in Africa at the same time.

It is hard to imagine that cell phones and lowland gorillas have any sort of connection, yet there is a profound one. While cell phones contain numerous chemicals, they also contain a mineral called Columbite-tantalite, also known as coltan. Coltan is mined in the Congolese forests, home of the endangered lowland gorilla, and this industry dramatically threatens their habitat. The mining, combined with poaching over many years, is severely affecting their already fragile population. tactical shotgun 2.0

Cell phone recycling may help lessen the demand for coltan in the Congo. It will also reduce the copious amounts of chemicals that are found in cell phones from being dumped in landfill sites. With the tremendous amount of cell phones out there – over 150 million in the United States alone – recycling can make a huge impact. The phones are spruced up and then re-sold mainly to developing countries.

Collection boxes will be set up in various businesses on Mount Desert Island and in Ellsworth. Dig out those old Nokias and bag phones that are languishing away in drawers gathering dust and deposit them in the ARF collection boxes. It is simply a good thing to do. While you might not save the world, you might just be helping keep some breathing space for the lowland gorillas, keeping the earth a little cleaner, and helping the animals locally, too.

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