Youth-Powered Change

In your lifetime, how many mobile phones have you owned? I know that I have had five, and in my household over the last ten years possibly twenty phones have been purchased. It is estimated that the average Australian typically upgrades their phone every 18-24 months and on a global scale 800 million people own a mobile phone.

For each phone that is made columbite tantalite - colloquially known as coltan, is ground down and used for its heat resistant properties to coat the capacitor. Coltan is a rare and precious metal which is in high demand due to the ever expanding world of technology and can cost as much as $400 a kilogram, with eighty percent of the worlds coltan reserves located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, coltan is playing a key role in the demise of many of Africa’s primate species, through mining, habitat loss and as forest is stripped back many gorilla populations fall victim to poaching.

In October of this year, Zoo’s Victoria partnered with the Jane Goodall Institute to launch a mobile phone campaign to combat the detrimental affects illegal coltan mining is having on the endangered wildlife species living in the Congo River Basin.

The campaign ‘They’re Calling on You’ aims to raise public awareness of the coltan mining crisis in the DRC and divert mobile phones from landfill. According to Rachel Lowry, the Community Conservation Manager for Zoo’s Victoria, the benefits of diverting these mobiles from Australian landfill aren’t just local, there is a global benefit of reducing the demand for coltan by recycling the capacitor of old phones and fifty percent of funds raised by retrieving this precious metal go directly towards primate rehabilitation with the other half going towards projects within the zoo.

With many businesses already involved, as well as schools and universities set to follow, the campaign can be applied to a range of different circumstances. And as Rachel Lowry explains the benefit of the campaign is that an individual does not have to donate money nor hardly any time, but simply place their unused phone in the satchels provided and send in the mail.

Already in the first month, the campaign has seen over 1000 phones donated. Unlike many other recycling programs which simply divert a phone from landfill, Zoo’s Victoria’s campaign appeals to people interested in more than reducing waste, but also the conservation of many species, environmental destruction as well as the mining of coltan in the DRC and the public unrest due to this- and what could be easier than putting your unwanted phone in a postage paid, addressed envelope?

To find out more about how to recycle your mobile phone or organize a collection bin at your school, university or workplace please visit - http://www.zoo.org.au/Calling_on_You .