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During the recently ended CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, Verizon Wireless announced that their phone recycling and refurbishing program, HopeLine, has seen a double-digit increase in phones collected since January 1st, compared to the first two months of 2008. As a result, the carrier expects to see more than one million phones collected by the year’s end.
Late last year, Verizon Wireless gave consumers the option to download a postage-paid mailing label from its Web site, enabling them to send old wireless phones, batteries and accessories to HopeLine for recycling. The company also increased distribution of its HopeLine envelope, giving customers who purchase or upgrade phones online a quick and easy option to recycle their old phones as soon as the new one arrives. These efforts led to a 44 percent jump in mail-in donations in the first two months of this year.
For the record, since its introduction in 2001, HopeLine collected more than 5.6 million phones and turned that into nearly $6.5 million in support for victims of domestic violence and the agencies that support them.
Nicely done Verizon – we can only hope other operators will follow with similar initiatives.
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
