Many of us, (around 400 million, by the third quarter of 2017) have a brand new phone that we’re getting to know, and an old phone, our constant companion for the last 1.7 years, who’s about to disappear into the messy drawer we all have. You know what we mean – that drawer where the things we can’t quite get rid of go. Maybe we don’t really trust our new phone yet – we’ll hold onto the old one as a fail-safe. Maybe we haven’t figured out how to get those old photos off the phone – especially that one where you’re dancing with the coat-rack at the office party. Maybe we have an inkling that this piece of hardware doesn’t belong in the trash, but we don’t know what to do with it.

The Earth has a messy drawer problem

All of these reasons mean that the planet’s big messy drawer has around 1.6 billion phones languishing in it. But what if those mild-mannered phones have superhero lives ahead of them? What if they could prevent millions of kilos of CO2 from entering our atmosphere? Or change the life of a small business owner in Ghana? Or even make a brand new phone a little bit fairer?

Join the Fairphone recycling program! By recycling and reusing old phones, we can give them new lives in new homes, or recover valuable materials like gold, copper and palladium. We can reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing new phones, AND make the environment inside our messy drawers a bit cleaner, freeing up some much-needed space for 1980s floppy disks, random lengths of string, and loose paper clips.

Compared to the good it can do, the reasons for keeping old phones in the drawer start to pale into insignificance. That backup? Let’s face it, at best you only need your last phone. And even then, maybe only one person in the house needs one (after all, sharing is caring!).

But what about my old data?

Want to ensure your embarrassing party pictures are gone? We’ve put together a step by step guide to securely overwrite your data on your old phone – whether it’s an iPhone or an Android or a Blackberry. And if that’s not enough, don’t worry, we erase data again using Blancco Technology.

Still have data on that old phone you need to migrate? Drop in to our community forum and ask for help or share your tips!

Get your free shipping label now

Our recycling program is currently available in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

If you live in one of those countries, go grab your old phone(s) and fill out this super easy form — we’ll send you a free shipping label to whisk your phone off to its new life.

We promise we’ll take good care of your old friend: after all, every phone you recycle is another step towards a brighter, fairer future for all of us.

Do you hear that sound? It’s your old phone calling you to send it on a new adventure. We’ll let you go answer it now.