Help Save Gorillas, Donate Your Old Cell Phones!
TORONTO, ON: This Christmas, families all over the GTA will watch as loved ones open neatly wrapped boxes containing every kind of electronic device imaginable. But what happens to the thousands of cell phones, tablets and laptops that are being replaced and discarded? Your Toronto Zoo has an answer with a program called Phone Apes. This program not only saves these outdated devices from inevitably ending up in the back of your junk drawer, but also helps save the quickly vanishing habitats of Western lowland gorillas in Africa.
For most of us, acquiring a new cell phone is as simple as a few clicks on a website, or a trip to the local mobile store. We consider the cost, the plan, and the capabilities of each device, but what we don’t think about while selecting our colour and camera quality is where the materials used in the tiniest components of these cell phones come from, and what it takes to extract those materials from the earth on the other side of the globe.
Coltan is a metallic ore used to produce the element tantalum. Tantalum capacitors are used in almost all electronic devices to help keep them cool. Coltan is most concentrated, and therefore most easily mined, in the rainforests of Western Africa which is destroying the habitat of the western lowland gorillas at an alarming rate. The best and worst part of this cycle is we now have enough coltan mined to meet our global demand! As a 100% recyclable material, tantalum can be re-used in new electronic devices lessening or potentially even eliminating the demand to mine pure coltan in the Congo.
“Phone Apes is such an amazing and important program” says Kyla Greenham, Manager, Conservation Programs & Environment. “Since we started the program in 2006, the Zoo has collected over 50,000 cellphones! Not only does the program lessen the need for further mining of coltan, but the money raised by these recycling programs goes towards field programs for the conservation of Great Apes”.
The Toronto Zoo provides 100% landfill free cell phone recycling services to schools, community groups, corporations and many other partners across Ontario. Please visit https://www.torontozoo.com/tz/phoneapes to check out the nearest Phone Apes recycling boxes in your community, or to request a box in your community, school or corporation. Alternatively, feel free to drop those old cell phones and tablets off right at the Zoo’s front entrance where they will be safely recycled. The events page also lists dates when the Zoo hosts E-waste collections days in the drop-off loop, where larger electronic items like computers and TVs can be disposed.
Answer the call of the wild this Christmas and recycle your cell phones with
Phone Apes and your Toronto Zoo!
