Flora Graham
Flora Graham can talk the hind leg off a donkey, so it's no wonder she's CNET UK's resident expert on mobile phones. Gadgets make her feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but she shows no mercy to rubbish technology. If you say her name three times and make a wish, her phone will ring.
Wednesday 11 March 2009, 12:06pm
Save the world, make money, meet attractive singles: Okay, two out of three
Warwickshire County council says there are over 20 million potentially toxic redundant mobile phones in the UK alone. And how can you not trust an organisation that has a bear chained to a tree as its logo?
The problem with being a gadget lover is the huge pile of cadmium-laced, discarded handsets filling up my junk drawer. So in the spirit of spring cleaning, I went looking for a way to get rid of them responsibly.
I packed up two mobiles and sent them to Amnesty International, bagging them £8 and me a speck of good karma. And I was surprised to find that a newer phone bagged me £75 on eBay, even though it had been gathering dust for a year.
If I couldn't get a few quid for myself or charity, some UK councils will recycle mobiles, and there are lots of companies that would take them off my hands.
It'll also help if the dream of a standardised phone charger comes true, since most of these options won't take the charger.
All this worthiness has made me feel pretty awesome about myself, and an iota better about the environmental footprint of the gadgets I'm gathering. Whether that extends to buying an eco-phone like the Samsung Blue Earth, made from recycled water bottles, remains to be seen.
Comments on this post
I really enjoy how Palm is somehow getting the game of what Redmond has done for decades - announce vaporware as if it is real, and then have the tech media review it as if it is real and available today against actual shipping product. This is an amazing feat, considering the tech media finally caught onto Redmond's game a few years ago, but it does not seem to apply to Palm. Palm is pushing a "vaporware" product called Pre. It is obviously trying to slow sales of iPhone and BB's. It would be nice to see a tech journalist, say "This appears to be a nice - if not great product - but it's vaporware right now, and until it is in-hand, iPhone wins. After all, this will ship about the time the next generation iPhone is expected to hit the shelves, so who knows what the Pre will actually be selling against?" But no. We get a vaporware product compared with shipping goods. Pathetic.
Posted by Mark on Mon 16 March, 2009 6:14 PM
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It was announced way back. Glad to see it is here.
Posted by virtual real estate mediation on Tue 17 March, 2009 6:44 AM
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This post doesn't even mention Palm...but good to get it of our chests!
Posted by Flora on Wed 25 March, 2009 10:08 AM
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