According to a recent Nokia survey (6500 respondents, 13 countries) only 3% of cellphones are recycled and awareness that mobile phones can be recycled ranged from 80% in the UK to 17% in India.

According to Nokia, "up to 80% of any Nokia device is recyclable and precious materials within it can be reused to help make new products such as kitchen kettles, park benches, dental fillings or even saxophones and other metal musical instruments."

And if every Nokia user recycled just one unused phone at the end of its life, together we would save nearly 80,000 tonnes of raw materials.

Good news is that South Africa is included in Nokia's global recycling program which spans 85 countries and close to 5000 take-back sites.

Nokia has placed take-back bins in over 50 places around the country and devices collected in the bins will be forwarded to qualified recyclers for responsible reclaiming of the materials.

The campaign is not only calling for the return of old Nokia devices, but rather any manufacturer's mobile device can be dropped in the bins.

Use the Nokia search facility to find out where to drop off your old phone and read more about Nokia's we:recycle program here.

Also consider that as part of the "reduce, reuse, recylce" mantra that perhaps you could get away with not owning a cellphone (yes, I do know someone who manages without one), that you don't need to upgrade every two years (that 3310 is still going strong on it's 4th battery) or that you could give your old phone away or resell it.