Australia Post is helping tackle e-waste during Planet
Ark's National Recycling Week (November 7 - 13) by making it easy for
Australians to recycle printer cartridges and mobile phones into
everything from pens to jewellery at Australia Post outlets.
The Enviroliner felt tip pen is made from more than 95 per cent of recycled plastics and inks, with one cartridge making two pens.
Planet Ark Campaigns Manager, Brad Gray, says one third of people still throw their used printer cartridges in their home garbage bins.
"By making e-waste recycling so accessible Australia Post is helping to encourage more and more people to get involved," said Mr Gray.
Some of the toner cartridges collected by the program are returned to their original manufacturers for re-manufacturing or component recovery. The remaining cartridges are converted into new products such as pens, park benches and rulers.
The build up of old mobile phones is another major contributor to e-waste, with approximately 19 million unused mobile phones sitting in people's cupboards and drawers across the country.
"If you collected all of these old phones and laid them out end-to-end, they would stretch from Brisbane to Adelaide," said Mr Twomey.
Old batteries can be recycled to make new batteries and circuit boards include small amounts of gold and silver that can be used to make jewellery.
Recycling old mobile phones and used printer cartridges is easy. People can simply visit their local post office and collect a MobileMuster Reply Paid satchel or place their old cartridges in the 'Cartridges 4 Planet Ark' recycling boxes located in store.
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