Use of Resources
Reduce – Reuse – Recycle is the Telekom Austria Group’s motto for resource conservation. The sparing use of resources not only helps protect the environment, it also saves costs.
On average Austrian households have 1.6 old mobile phones lying around. Each year 1 million new mobiles are sold by A1 alone. Although 40% of the material content of a mobile phone can be recovered and recycled, only 15% of all handsets are currently returned, resulting in the loss of valuable raw materials. A1’s clear objective is therefore to increase the recovery rate. The possibility to return end-of-life mobile phones to the A1 shops and the collection scheme at Austrian schools organized jointly with the Austrian Youth Red Cross help raise awareness for this issue. Four hundred schools are using a specially developed A1 school package with tuition material about mobile phone recycling to educate students about proper disposal and recycling. Customers can return end-of-life handsets to shops, retailers and wholesalers. Together with a waste management partner, A1 ensures the recovery as well as the state-of-the-art and environmentallyfriendly recycling of old handsets.
