Phone Recycling Helps Gorillas

Donation Supports Habitat Conservation

IT employees from the Vulcan Materials Company Western Division collected 600 old mobile phones for recycling. This helps decrease demand for coltan, mined in Africa and used to manufacture electronics. The mineral wreaks havoc on gorillas and other animals.

This Vulcan recycling effort was performed in conjunction with the Los Angeles Zoo and ECO-CELL, a company that refurbishes phones where possible. The phones were collected from three Vulcan divisions including Southwest, Mountain West and Western.

IT specialist Sam Hosseini, IT Manager Roland Liwanag and IT specialist Ron Hernandez recycled cell phones at the Los Angeles Zoo.

An estimated 150 million cell phones are replaced each year, resulting in 65,000 tons of electronic garbage. When phones are discarded with other trash (illegal in California), these toxins leach out into the environment, polluting the soil and water. The U.S. EPA estimates that more than 3.2 million tons of electronics are landfilled each year.

For more information, please visit www.lazoo.org and www.eco-cell.com