Members can trade in their old mobiles for a range of desirable items such as: nights in boutique hotels; music lessons from artists like Blur, Duffy and KT Tunstall; tickets to events; and gift vouchers to spend online.
Coolafone values each mobile phone in Coolacredits, an online trading currency which can be converted into e-vouchers to spend with partners or that can be donated to a portfolio of environmental projects such as Solar Aid and Waste Watch.
There are over two thousand handsets that can be valued on the website, which is a joint venture between handset recycler Regenersis Environmental Services and Coolaworld, the eco-consumer brand created by Richard Kilgarriff, who previously ran digital TV channels such as Cartoon Network and TCM in the UK and Germany.
In 2007 Kilgarriff worked on a global environmental campaign backed by celebrities such as Sienna Miller and Josh Hartnett and his experience inspired him to bring shopping and mobile phone recycling together with Coolafone.
He said: “At a time when the environment may come second to the economy in terms of public concern, we have developed the most rewarding way to recycle mobile phones, both for consumers and for the planet.”
Mark Franklin, managing director at Regenersis, commented: “In the UK we replace our mobiles 18 million times a year but less than 20% of these phones are recycled, representing tonnes of toxic landfill and CO2 for future generations to inherit. Alternatively we could convert old phones into millions of pounds for the economy and the environment by recycling them with Coolafone.”