Visit the Zoo but Remember to bring your old Cellphone

Zoos nationwide partner with Eco-Cell to save animal habitats

CHATTANOOGA, TN – This week on Tech Byte we took a visit to our friends at the Chattanooga Zoo where we got to meet George the Giraffe and Thor the Aldabra Tortoise.  The reason for our visit was sparked last year by a visit to the Louisville Zoo where my wife and I noticed a cellphone drop off in the Gorilla Exhibit from a company called Eco-Cell.

Jake Cash, the Director or Marketing and Communications for the Chattanooga Zoo was nice enough to give us a behind the scenes look and tell us a little more about the program.

“This is eco cell. So that’s a company we work with to help people recycle their old cell phones at Chattanooga Zoo. So you might be asking, what’s so special about cell phones? Why are we recycling them? So there’s a mineral called coltan that is found in cell phones. It’s a key component of what makes them work. It’s found in cell phones, other electronics, and most of the mining for that is done in the Congo. There’s lots of gorilla habitats in the Congo. So as the mining continues, habitat destruction goes on. Their habitats shrink and it causes them to, it causes their population to decrease. So it’s caused them to be they’re actually critically endangered. Multiple species of gorillas are critically endangered, and their populations are still decreasing. And a big part of that is the mining in relation to the tech industry. So by recycling old cell phones, that puts the coltan in those devices back into circulation, allows people to make new devices with them. So we can still have our new phones, our new nice technology, without contributing to the habitat destruction that gorillas face on a day to day basis. So this is just one of the things we do at Chattanooga Zoo to try to help out. And it’s something small that you or anyone else can do to give back and help us create a more sustainable future.”

According to Eco-Cells website, it is estimated that there are 762 million cellphones sitting in drawers in people houses.  I’m personally guilty of this as we had one or two that we dropped off at the zoo.  They can also take your old tablets, wireless ear buds, GPS units, smart watches, MP3 Players and digital cameras.  All of these contain coltan which could be recycled and used in new devices instead of going to a landfill.  Less than 20% of all cellphones end up being recycled and if you think that over 100 million new cellphones are purchased ever year – that isn’t a huge number.  We can definitely improve on that.

Next time you visit your local zoo, remember to bring your old cellphone or electronic device and drop it in the collection bin.