Nokia conversations posted a round up of their Nokia recycling survey . I couldnt help thinking. Would this even be possible in a country like India ?
Lets take Manipal / Udupi for example.
Here’s a couple of glorious pictures of the town landfill taken with my ol’N95 :
Depressing much ? Well it should be. All the garbage from Udipi and Manipal ( and Lord knows where else ) is piled up here and set ablaze , everyday. And just think, the pictures just show you like a quater of the landfill.
Now in a place that makes so much garbage, you’d think people would want to recycle. Right ? Sadly thats not the case. There are no recycling centers anywhere around Udipi/Manipal and all the garbage goes straight to this landfill.Not that i know of ,atleast.
Now in India , what exactly happens to old cellphones ? Sure you might see the occasional Nokia 3310 in a lower income person’s hand but even the local rickshaw drivers have colour screen ,music blaring cellphones these days. So where does the old cellphones of yester-year go ?
I know that most people in India sell off their old phones as soon as they get a new one. Others just hang on to their old phones. I kept my Nokia N-gage for purely sentimental reasons but i’ve sold all my other phones here. God only knows where they’ve ended up.
This is what Nokia is trying to change. And kudos to them for initiating the change. They’re making it easier for people to recycle their old phones. All you have to do is drop your old phones into the recycling bin at their local Nokia store.
But in India , would that really work ? I know many people who keep their old phones just for “backup”… “Just incase something goes wrong with my new phone”.
Some keep their old phones for use as expensive paper weights. A friend of mine said ” I’d rather keep it and stare at it, then sell it for a low price considering how much i spent buying it”. Is that the key ? Are old phones , still so valuable to the average person that they would rather keep it than give it away for the good of the enviroment ? So would people in India really give up their old phones , for nothing ? Or would they just think “Whats in it for me ?” .
Sadly its a question that doesnt really get a positive answer in my mind. Even though Nokia has posted the benefits of recycling your old phone , the common man/woman here in India dont really care about those things. The captain planet generation is just simply absent here.
Although , the sliver lining , is that with this initiative, Nokia is paving the way to getting the whole country onboard with recycling. Just think , Nokia teaches people about recycling their phones. People slowly start recycling their phones and soon begin wondering “what else can i recycle around here?” . Soon demand for recycling centers sprout up all over , and the whole country begins recycling. India wakes up.
Or am i just being a little too optimistic ?
-Teh Cj
Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile things.
Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, on Google Plus 
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