2.1 Cell phone retirement and collection
How, when, and why electronic products are being retired and disposed of has only recently received the attention of researchers [39–41]. Early examples of such research were the ECTEL trials of a consortium of cell phone manufacturers, which included two user surveys in 1997 and 2001
[8, 42].
The main reason for retiring handsets emerged to be their replacement with new models, while the rate of replacement had increased substantially between the two surveys. It is estimated that current replacement times are between 1 and 2 years, while manufacturers believe that the technical lifetime is in the order of 10 years [33].
For this reason, retired handsets tend to be in good working condition. Important reasons for the frequent replacement are the heavy discounts offered by airtime providers as well as the constant product innovation by handset manufacturers.
Surveys also consistently show that owners of electronic products typically keep them beyond the end of the use phase for a variety of reasons, such as perceived residual value and lack of knowledge regarding proper WEEE disposal [1, 39, 43].
The ECTEL trial survey results suggest that, in principle, handset owners are open to the concept of returning end-of-use handsets, given that return programs are available and convenient. However, there is currently very little data available on actual cell phone disposal.
Due to their small size and weight, cell phones are easy to discard and difficult to detect in municipal solid waste. It is assumed, however, that most of the estimated 130 million handsets that were retired in 2005 in the USA had not been landfilled by 2006 [44].