VODAFONE STARTS UP NEW HANDSET RECYCLING PROGRAM

As its contribution to the ecologically-based Green Week, Vodafone has started up a new program for recycling old phones, thanks to which the operator should receive roughly CZK 300,000 per year. This sum will be distributed among ecological projects as part of a new Vodafone Foundation grant program. From today, all mobile phone users can return their old handsets, accessories, and batteries at new recycling points in Vodafone shops.

"As a socially responsible firm, we want to stimulate the recycling of old mobile phones by connecting it with the Vodafone Foundation's ecological projects," says Eva Jankechová of Vodafone's Corporate Responsibility division, adding, "If you drop your phone off at any of our shops, you can be certain that you are helping protect the environment and supporting a good cause."

In the recycling of old phones, Vodafone is cooperating with British firm Corporate Mobile Recycling, which is purchasing the used handsets of Czech customers from Vodafone and going on to recycle them. Every year Vodafone returns roughly 1,000 used mobile phones from its shops every year, which is the average for the Vodafone Group's European branches.

The international agency AccountAbility (http://www.accountabilityrating.com), which evaluates the level of corporate responsibility of major multinational firms in relation to their profits every year, rated the Vodafone Group as the most socially responsible firm in the world in 2006

You can learn about where the money received for the used handsets is going, along with Vodafone's other interesting Corporate Responsibility activities, at www.vodafone.cz/odpovednost.