Ministry launches phone recycling event
By Esme Yeh / Staff reporter
The Ministry of Environment’s Resource Circulation Administration has launched a mobile phone recycling event open to locals and international residents in Taiwan, with an iPhone and an Apple Watch being offered as lucky draw prizes.
The event has about 2,700 recycling sites nationwide and would run through this month — the “Mobile Phone Recycling Month of October.”
Chen Yen-nan (陳彥男), head of the Sustainable Consumption and Recycling Division at the administration, yesterday said that all people in Taiwan can participate in the event and the lucky draw regardless of their nationality.
The Ministry of Environment’s poster promoting Mobile Phone Recycling Month is pictured in an undated photograph.
Photo: Screen grab from the ministry’s Web site
Anyone can enter the raffle by recycling a mobile phone at the designated sites, he said, adding that there is no limit on the number of mobile phones recycled or number of raffle entries.
The administration would offer raffle prizes such as an iPhone, an Apple Watch and convenience store gift vouchers, while some participating organizations would offer conditional gifts to participants, Chen said.
The annual recycling of mobile phones in Taiwan ranged from 80,000 to 100,000 phones over the past three years, he said, adding that more than 90,000 mobile phones were recycled nationwide last year.
The ministry set up the Mobile Phone Recycling Month in 2019 and continued to hold the event to encourage people to properly recycle unused mobile phones, the administration said.
Given that mobile phones are made of materials such as metals and plastics, recycling mobile phones helps facilitate reuse or circulation of such resources, it said.
The administration called on people to back up phone data, delete all personal information and restore their phones to factory settings before handing them to recycling site operators or local governments’ cleaning squads, to ensure personal data protection.
Those who need assistance with personal data protection on a phone that cannot be turned on can seek help from the event’s designated service sites to destroy the phone’s charging port within the event period, it said.
Such service sites include Acer Inc’s Sijhih (汐止) and Guanghua (光華) service centers in New Taipei City, Wenxin (文心) service center in Taichung, and Jiouru (九如) service center in Kaohsiung, as well as Asus’ Royal Club Yingcai store in Taichung, it added.
More detailed information on the event can be found at the event Web site (https://phonereca.com).
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