What happens to business-use cell phones when they wear out or become obsolete? All too often, the answer is that these devices end up in a landfill. Such an end for a cell phone is waste, since materials and components could have been recycled, or perhaps the device could even have been refurbished to gain a second life.

 

With this inefficiency in mind, telecom expense management (TEM) solutions provider Rivermine on Monday announced a new wireless device recycling program, in partnership with ReCellular. The program is designed to handle “end-of-lifecycle” aspects of device management, including clearing company and/or personal data from phones and sending them on to be recycled or refurbished.

 

Jim Carroll, executive vice president of global wireless services at Rivermine (News - Alert), noted that more and more businesses are choosing to provide employees with wireless devices, and this trend is also accelerating the need to decommission those devices in an efficient and safe manner.

 

“Rivermine customers now have a way to support green initiatives by recycling their devices, while protecting sensitive corporate data,” Carroll said. in a statement.

 

As anyone familiar with the waste hierarchy knows, the second “R” of environmentalism is “reuse,” coming before “recycle” as an advantageous solution to waste and pollution. Rivermine reported that, during 2007, more than half of the four million cell phones collected by ReCellular (News - Alert) were refurbished. The result: reduced hardware costs for enterprises.

 

“Devices that once belonged to former employees can now be cleaned, reimaged and redeployed safely back into the enterprise,” Rivermine said in its announcement. “Companies can also maintain a pool of reconditioned devices to fulfill urgent replacement requests instead of having to buy new devices.”

 

ReCelullar, which describes itself as “the world's largest recycler and reseller of used cellular phones and accessories,” operates based on a “zero-landfill” policy: all donated materials — including shipping materials — are recycled. This policy diverted more than a million pounds of materials from landfills last year.

 

Doug Glancy, manager of ReCellular’s enterprise solutions division, expressed his satisfaction regarding the Rivermine partnership, saying that such relationships contribute positively toward the responsible handling of mobile device recycling.

 

“As a result of our proprietary 102 point data-deletion process, we have an unmatched ability to meet the strict data security requirements of customers while providing support for their environmental aspirations,” Glancy said in a Monday statement.

 

Rivermine’s Carroll confirmed that the deal benefits both companies and their customers: “Our partnership with ReCellular further enhances Rivermine's end-to-end wireless expense management solution, beginning with procurement and ending with the recycling or refurbishing of devices.”