How to recycle mobiles

Mobile phones, landline phones, chargers, and mobile accessories should never be put in your household recycling bin. They can be recycled, but only through specialised recycling programs. 

Australia has a national recycling scheme for mobile phones run by not-for-profit MobileMuster. Recycling your old or broken mobile phone is easy, with more than 3,000 free public drop-off points across Australia and a free mailing service. Recycling points include major phone retailers such as Optus, Telstra, and Vodafone, as well as Officeworks stores.

How to use the recycling scheme

Simply visit a recycling point to drop off your old, broken or unwanted mobile phones and accessories. Use the directory on this page to find a location near you.

Alternatively, you can post your mobile phones and accessories to MobileMuster for free by requesting a pre-paid satchel or picking one up from local Australia Post store. If you would prefer to use your own packaging, you can download a pre-paid label and drop your package off at the post office or post box.

What can you recycle?

MobileMuster accepts any type of mobile phone for recycling. They also accept mobile phone batteries, chargers and accessories like earphones.

At select Telstra, Optus and Vodafone stores, they also accept modems, home landline phones, TV streaming devices, smart speakers, smart digital hubs (only Apple, Amazon, Google products), smartwatches, smart pens, tracking tags and VR headsets (only Apple, Amazon, Fitbit, Google products).

Why recycle?

More than 95% of the materials in mobile phones (like metals, plastic, and glass) can be recovered and used to make new products. Recycling keeps these materials in use and out of landfill, preventing hazardous items like mobile phone batteries from leaching toxic materials into the soil and groundwater.

When you recycle, you are also reducing the need to extract new materials like precious metals from the earth, saving our natural resources in the process. Additionally, recycling prevents pollution and improves air quality by reducing the demand for power used in mining, refining, processing, and shipping of raw materials.

According to MobileMuster, recycling 50,000 mobiles saves 99 tonnes of mineral resources and 19 tonnes of CO2-e emissions. To find out how much impact you’re making from recycling your phone, visit the MobileMuster Calculator.

What happens to it?

Mobile phones, accessories, and other accepted electronic items collected by MobileMuster are transported to one of two recycling facilities in Sydney and Melbourne. Products are dismantled manually with components separated into different streams: circuit boards, metal, glass, plastics, and batteries.

Some plastics and metals are processed in Australia, while circuit boards, batteries, and other plastics are processed by MobileMuster’s recycling partner at their facility in Singapore. These materials are recovered and used to make a range of new products including mobile phones, glass bottles, recycled plastic park benches, electronics, mobile phone batteries, and stainless-steel products.

Nothing the program collects is reused or resold. MobileMuster’s priority is to recover the majority of materials to use in the manufacture of new products.

Image credit: MobileMuster.

Recycling mobiles at work

There are some recycling companies that offer collection and drop-off services for commercial quantities of mobile phones. To find a commercial mobile phone recycler for your workplace or business, visit mobile phones page for businesses. 

MobileMuster offers a one-off pick-up service for businesses across the country, accepting all brands of mobile phones, their charges and accessories, smart watches, VR headsets, and mobile broadband devices. To book a one-off collection, contact MobileMuster at mobilemuster@amta.org.au or call 1800 249 113.

MobileMuster partners with retailers, repair stores, local councils, and workplaces across Australia to make it easy and accessible for the community to recycle. Find out if your workplace or business can register for a free collection unit that can be used to promote mobile phone recycling to your staff and customers.

Businesses and workplaces can also consider buying second-hand, repairing or selling mobile phones through PhoneCycle.

Image credit: MobileMuster.

How to delete data

Before you recycle, sell, or give away your mobile phone, you should remove all personal information. If you are unable to remove the personal information from the phone, it can still be recycled. Any data left on the phone will be destroyed during the recycling process.

MobileMuster has step-by-step videos and helpful guides for removing data from both Android and iOS (iPhone) devices.

 Image credit: MobileMuster.

Reusing mobiles

Did you know there are currently 22 million unused mobile phones stored in homes across Australia and almost 14 million of these are unusable? If your mobile phone is still working, consider extending its life by either selling it online or passing it on to a friend or family member. This will extend the life of the mobile phone and keep the materials used to make it in use at their highest value for as long as possible. If it no longer works or is no longer wanted, then it’s time to recycle it.

What is MobileMuster?

MobileMuster is funded voluntarily by major handset manufacturers and network carriers to provide a free mobile phone recycling program. It was established in 1998 and is accredited by the Federal Government.