Thursday 21 November 2013

Virgin Media Offers Discount On New iPhone For TV Subscribers

Virgin Media will sell the new iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S at a special discounted rate for its TV subscribers, and will also offer £5 off their bills each month. Starting this Friday, when the new Apple smartphones hit Virgin stores, Virgin subscribers will also get the option of free calls to friends and family members who also use Virgin Mobile. As another added bonus, they will also get free insurance for their new iPhone.

For the 5S, Virgin clients will need to pay £69 upfront for all memory options, but there will be a difference in the monthly instalment discounts: the 16GB version with 1GB of data transfer capacity will cost £41 per month; the 32GB model includes 3GB of data and will cost £59; the 64GB version with unlimited data transfer will cost £71 per month.

For the 5C model, customers will have to pay £29 upfront and £33 per month for the 16GB version with 500MB data, and £69 upfront plus £41 every month for the 32GB version with 1GB of data. Alternatively, people can get the 4S for free at first, with £23 monthly instalments and 250MB of data. All figures are for two-year contracts.

To compare, retail prices for the 5C start from £469 for the 16GB version, and the 32GB version costs £549. The 5S starts from £549 for the 16GB version, £629 for the 32GB version, and £709 for the 64GB model.

This news update was brought to you by Fonehub - the mobile phone recycling specialists.


Thursday 14 November 2013

Some Facts And Figures About Mobile Phone Recycling

Many of us are guilty of throwing our old mobile phones straight into the bin when we no longer need them. However, as the following facts and figures prove, recycling phones and any other electronic device is the best option for both ourselves and the environment.

There is around £6.9 billion worth of unused phones in the UK at the moment, which equals approximately 90 million mobiles. Shockingly, 50% of Britons are not aware of how easy mobile phone recycling is. Another possibly shocking figure is that 14% of the population keeps no less than four unused mobiles at home, while the average for the majority is two.

If we take a wider look at the whole of Europe, we'll see that the number of unused mobiles on the continent totals an estimated 160 million. To put this in some perspective: if all the gold and lead from these 160 million phones are collected, they will be worth £315 million. Globally, it has been calculated that if all the gold from unused mobiles is collected, it will reach an amount of 16 metric tonnes.

Worryingly, pollution from mobile phone batteries affects water equaling the size of 80 billion Olympic swimming pools. Perhaps the worst thing is that mobiles in landfills leak toxic chemicals which, through the soil and the water, come back to poison us. Mobiles contain lead, cadmium, mercury, bromine, and brominated flame retardants, all of them damaging for the human body. Mercury, to begin with, can cause blindness and high blood pressure. Cadmium affects the kidneys and causes permanent damage to their function. It is also a proven carcinogen, and scientists suspect that lead and bromine can also cause cancer in various organs.

So, take your old mobile to a recycling place or donate it to charity, don't let it lie around or throw it away with the garbage.


Thursday 7 November 2013

Recycling My Mobile Phone

Electronics Recycling Supports Communities and Creates Jobs

Recycling old mobile phones, computers, and other electronic devices has a number of advantages, including the recovering of rare earths and conflict minerals, and protecting the environment from toxic waste. However, it also has great social implications that perhaps don't cross your mind very often. Just look at the figures: every year, around 128 million mobile phones are estimated to be replaced with new ones, and some two million tonnes of electronic equipment is discarded.

Recycling electronics supports the community in two ways: by creating new jobs, and by providing access to modern technology to people otherwise unable to afford it. The new jobs come as recycling expands and more and more businesses become engaged with it, opening new recycling facilities. It is therefore important to support this expansion by participating and promoting electronics recycling. In the United States, there is already a law prohibiting the export of electronic waste, which was earlier estimated to be conducive to the creation of around 42,000 new jobs in the recycling industry.

Recycling can also take the form of donation to charities, schools, and low-income families, allowing people who would otherwise be unable to access modern technology use things like smartphones and personal computers. A word of caution, however: don't donate very old mobile phones or desktops, as this is likely to turn into a disadvantage for the organisation you donate them to - as it would be hard for them to upgrade, make usable, or pass the old devices on, and eventually they might have to do your job: give the device away for actual recycling of the parts.


Visit the FoneHub website to learn more about selling mobile phones