NBA to kick off its first "green week" Thursday

I appreciate guys like Steve Nash of the NBA who are truly trying to make an impact and set the example for others in his sport. His quotes from this USA Today story are a refreshing change from the excesses of many professional athletes. Professional sports needs an athlete to take a lead and I hope we have more to follow in the footprint he is trying to make.

Senior Center is communicating the Cause

Read up on the Pottsville Pennsylvania Senior Centers recycling and fundraising efforts in the Republican Herold

Can You Find Me Now?

For the post paid people of the world who would actually want to be found if an emergency were to hit, you will find a helpful list if tips and tricks that will help save your life.

Tips for helping police and rescue workers find you in an emergency:

-Don't hang up. When you call 911, the longer you keep the line open, the better the chance emergency personnel will find you.
-Tell operators your location as soon as possible. Be specific.
-Ask your cellular provider what method they use to locate 911 calls on your phone.
-Consider replacing phones more than 2 years old. Newer phones have GPS chips that can tell 911 operators your location.
-If you live in a rural area, pick a phone with GPS rather than triangulation as its location method. Rural areas have fewer towers, which makes it harder to fix your position.

For those of you who want to stay off the radar of law enforcement whether they are there to help save your live or not; stick to your prepaid non GPS devise.

Greening your exercise routine

Being a middle aged environmentalist entrepreneur and avid gym rat, I found Katherine Thompson's article on greening your exercise routine a really fun and informative.

-Don't drive to work out, if you can help it. Work out at home or nearby. If you're a gymgoer, join one within walking or biking distance of your home. Added bonus: You'll be more likely to go if it's closer. Or join one near work so you can make it part of your daily routine without adding more car miles. If you're racing, try to carpool or take public transportation.
-At the gym, don't be a towel hog. Just because you aren't the one doing the laundry doesn't mean it's OK to use four towels per shower at the local Y. Better yet, bring your own, and wash it once a week.
-Be aware of your equipment. Some manufacturers are attempting to use more sustainable materials and practices; patronize them. Brooks, for example, now makes a running shoe with a midsole that decomposes in a landfill a lot faster than those in other shoes. You can also buy exercise apparel made of recycled polyester, organic cotton, or wool.
-Recycle what you can. Don't ditch old shoes and clothes; wear them as long as you can, and then donate them to charity or recycle them. (To find out how to recycle or donate old shoes, go to www.runnersworld.com/donate.) It goes without saying you should recycle plastic drink bottles; better yet, use your own refillable one as much as possible.
-Reduce your gear consumption. Ignore some of the shiny new products, and make do with what you have. As a bonus, this will save you money. (Here's a list of 5 ways your workout can weather the recession.) And when you do a race, don't take the goody bag or free T-shirt if you're just going to throw it away in a few months.
-Buy food and drink in bulk. Sports bars, gels, and drinks are sold in conveniently small packages that you can take along on your ride or hike. But instead, buy the largest sizes available, then chop up bars, put gels in a refillable flask, and use your own bottle for liquids.
-Don't pollute. While you're training or racing, do what campers do and pack out waste until you can find a place to trash, compost, or recycle it. You can go above and beyond by devoting, say, one hike or run a month to cleaning up the trash left by others on your favorite route.

Colorado needs additional recycling outlets

Please watch this clip of a Denver News program promoting an effort for Denver residents to recycle used electronics. The video is evidence that we need more stationary recycling kiosks placed around the front range. We at Cellular Recycler are making strides for the small electronics and the recovery of assets for non profits and wireless carriers but we it is evident Americans are looking for a structured way to recycle large old electronics.


KUSA - The event turnout was so big, 9NEWS collected 25 semi-trucks full of old electronics.

Some people waited in line for more than a few hours to turn in their used electronics. The turnout was so huge, some people had to be turned away. People were showing up with truckloads of old electronics and 9NEWS had to close all 5 drop-off locations early. 9NEWS, Waste Management, Comcast and LG Electronics provided this service for free. For those who did turn their electronics in, thank you. For those who were not able to participate, but tried to make the effort, we thank you too. 9NEWS is in discussions and hopes to hold another Electronics Recycling Event.

Simmons Bank Collecting Used Cell Phones-Fundraiser for Relay for Life

Being a University of Arkansas graduate, it is nice to see a cell phone recycling program we have started here in Colorado has reached back to my home college state.

Simmons Bank is collecting used cell phones as a fund raiser for the Relay for Life.
Collected phones will be sold to Cellular Recycler and proceeds will be donated to the American Cancer Society during the Relay.

Used cell phones may be dropped off by March 6, 2009 at Simmons Bank in Monticello, Simmons Bank, hte ATT Corporate Store, and Custom Wireless in Monticello.

Sprint’s Ambitious Recycling Goal

Sprint recently announced a new, industry-leading objective to reach a 90 percent phone collection rate for reuse and recycling by 2017.

In 2008, Sprint collected more than three million units. This was equal to 34 percent of devices sold, an increase from 22 percent in 2007. Of the handsets that Sprint collected in 2008, more than 90 percent were reused.

According to the company, the U.S. contains over 270 million cell phone users, and more than 140 million cell phones are discarded every year. Additionally, a recent Sprint survey examining consumers’ mobile phone recycling habits found that nine out of 10 surveyed own at least one, or as many as five, old, unused mobile phones.

Motorola makes "green" play with recycled phone

Motorola has come up with a phone made from recycled water bottles, the company said today, adding that it reduced the handset's carbon footprint from making, distributing and operating the phone by planting trees and investing in alternative-energy technology. T-Mobile USA will begin marketing the W233 phone this quarter.

Green IT resolutions

Harry Fuller and Heather Clancy from their blog Green Tech Pastures offer 10 Green IT Resolutions that businesses will embrace in the coming 12 months: I wrote about money saving ideas for 2009 in November but their take for the new year is definitely worth the read. These ideas are nothing new but I find that even I need to be refreshed on the basics:

-Steal some T&E budget for conferencing technology:
-Support and encourage telecommuting:
-Establish baselines to improve corporate carbon profiles:
-Adopt power management:
-Go paperless:
-Incorporate virtualization and consolidation into routine data center practices:
-Establish an audit trail for e-waste:
-Add “green” metrics to technology evaluation criteria:
-Look to the cloud:
-Insist on a seat during larger corporate green discussions:

Stay with the White Elephant

It seems like everywhere I turn companies have decided to cancel their holiday parties this year. Citing dropping stock prices, sinking revenues, overall economy worries, etc., organizations of all sizes and types are joining the trend. Even companies that are doing well are forgoing the yearly festivities because they would be “inappropriate” or “insensitive” in this time of uncertainty and layoffs. Apparently scaling down from previous year’s party is not enough-

It is a tough decision.

Celebrating the holiday season has a very human basis to it that is independent of whether these are good times or bad. Companies can’t treat a traditional event, even one as unnatural and stilted as subjecting everyone’s spouse to my drunken 08 reflection and 09 outlook. You spend so much time around these people during the year that it is flat necessary to get a quick peak into who they spend all their other time with, and what they are like when they bring that new fiancé that nobody has yet seen. I understand not wanting to insult employee’s intelligence when they overhear sales totals, but what about your guys you can’t do without? Doesn’t their morale count?

Sure you have to be sensitive to budgetary concerns but that should mean scale back, not phase out.

Survey calls for recycling of old handsets

Nokia Communications Manager East and Central Africa, Dorothy Ooko briefs the press on the newly launched Take Back and Recycling Campaign in Kenya for old handsets. Please click here to view Nokias efforts for e-waste in Africa.

Part 2: Designing the Papa John's Collection Program

This multipart project consisted of on-air advertising, web messaging and, most importantly, internal communication for the Papa Johns Pizza team. We were confident in our ability to get the web portion of the campaign dialed in and get recycling collection boxes to the stores for customers who picked up. Management at Papa Johns was excited about the new promotion as well, but their internal communication would be intense. Papa John’s marketing team had to communicate to 81 store managers and also wanted to provide incentives for both stores and employees.

Looking at the radio spots, we needed to reach the 313K KYGO weekly audience. We calculated the 41 Colorado stores who deliver thousands of pizzas per week in coordination with the $17K in advertising budget dollars for the 40-day length of the campaign. We put our heads together and decided on the evening drive time. There would be a 3:30 to 7:00 p.m. 30-second drive time spot and the 60-second live version that would hit the drive time audience between the hours of 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. by the drive time DJ Catfish. We really liked the fact that a personality would carry our message. Sometimes the best you can do is make these decisions based on personal habits and advice from the experts in radio. I have a tendency to change the channel when I hear a commercial but when my DJ keeps talking into his segment I generally listen. According to our calculations, if 2% of the 313K listeners who heard our message, believe in our mission, and donated their phone over the life of the campaign, we would break even and at worst get some good exposure out of this campaign. If we got over 2% then it would be high fives all the way around.

We placed the Papa Johns banner on the Cellular Recycler home page linking to the campaign details page. If a participating customer would want to learn more on where the donations would be going or what would happen to their old phone they wouldn’t have to dig too deep to get their desired information.

We knew when writing this 30-second spot, there is little time and many words needed to get a point across. Our order of priority was: free breadsticks, give without giving during the holiday season, Papa Johns Pizza, supporting our troops, and THEN Cellular Recycler. Our name says what we do but the last thing on our mind was brand recognition because the focus was phone collection.

Read Part 1 of this series.

Guide to Greener Electronics

Greenpeace recently wrote the guide to greener electronics about the top 18 manufacturers recycling guide which included mobile phones.
Nokia does have the easiest phones and readily available parts for refurbishing. Refurbishing is reuse and I can speak on behalf of cell phone recycling.

I suspect the climbers in the middle have some hefty advertising budgets rather than solutions they are putting in place but either way the article is a good temperature gage for where we are at today.

Green your Routine

Being in the green business world I am always curious when a large conglomerate campaigns or advertises their green message. During Sunday Night football last night, I noticed that the NBC peacock was all green, instead of the usual rainbow, so I went to the website. I have to say that the Green Tips section from the main page were a lot of fun to read and it actually got me thinking about all the computers and the server we have running here at Cellular Recycler. I have included the ‘work’ section from the Green Tips below but if you have the time go through the rest of these helpful tips.

-Make your coffee break greener. There are many ways to make your coffee break eco-friendly. For example, putting sugar in your cup before you pour your coffee will eliminate the need for a stirrer. Also, use a ceramic mug instead of a Styrofoam or paper cup.

-Print smarter. Printing and copying can be one of the most costly operations in any office. To save on ink and paper costs, print double-sided and try to fit more than one page on a sheet. More printing tips can be found on Life Hacker

-Turn off your computer. Do you leave your computer on overnight? If so, you're using up a good amount of electricity. When you can, try turning off your computer and the power strip it's connected to. If you can't, at least shut off your monitor. Remember, screen savers don't save energy.

-Recycle at the work place. It seems easy enough, but if you're office doesn't do it already, suggest putting recycling bins in your kitchen and copy rooms. You'll feel less guilty about throwing away all that paper.

-Use eco-friendly utensils. Replace those plastic knives and forks in the break room with silverware or biodegradable utensils. If you have the space, try to get everyone in the office to bring their own mugs and plates from home.

It just goes to show you even when the environment is on your mind every day you can still lose sight of the basics. Not only do the basics help lessen the footprint we make, the basics can help you save a little green, and right now that is needed advice.

Part 1: Hatching an Idea for the First Cell Phone Recycling Pick-Up Campaign

For the next few weeks, I will be blogging about a new Cellular Recycler campaign with Papa John's Pizza. Here is my first post about the idea behind the campaign.



Shortly after the 2007 NFL football season, I was listening to Sports Radio 950 the fan (now FM 104.3). Now, I have never done radio advertising and we definitely haven’t done it for Cellular Recycler. But, as I was listening, I thought it might be a good venue for letting soccer moms and football dads out there know that there was a new fundraising option instead of the every day popcorn and Christmas wreath sales that both kids and parents (and their parents' officemates)have to endure. The station was nice enough to invite us down to talk about a possible partnership. Admittedly, I didn’t know exactly what we were after, except that I felt it was time to take cell phone recycling to the people through a more widespread public campaign.

Although it was fun to see Scott Hastings and Alfred Williams doing their radio show, it wasn’t a great fit initially. We found out pretty quickly that 90% of their listeners were male. (You might say ‘duh’, but remember that at the time we were new to the whole radio advertising thing.) From our experience of building ground floor collection campaigns with companies like the American Cancer Society, we knew that we really needed to communicate with women in order to have a successful campaign. (Why? Honestly, I don’t know, but I plan to explore this in a future post.) Bottom line – sports radio was definitely not the right medium to test this “widespread public campaign” concept. Nonetheless, we left the meeting with confidence because at least we tried, failed, and learned from the experience.

It turned out that all wasn’t lost because Lincoln Financial Media, owner of 950 The Fan, also owns the country pop station KYGO, and it has a very solid and faithful base of female listeners. Our account rep had taken the cell phone recycling and fundraising concept to one of the station’s clients, Papa John’s Pizza. All of a sudden, we had a huge company like Papa John’s Pizza that was looking for an environmental edge and loved being the first with a message like this to its customers.

In the past, our team has fought and fought to get out cell phone recycling kits to business and non-profits, place recycling bins in retail stores, and train employees at wireless carriers about recycling. But this idea was truly different. This would be an opportunity for us to partner with a great company, promote the program to the general public, offer people a way to recycle their electronics, and raise money for a great cause. Papa Johns Pizza was even willing to offer its customers free breadsticks for their donation and use the program to fundraise for one of Papa John’s charitable partners, the USO.



Given what’s going on with the economy and how likely charitable organizations are to suffer, everything just seemed to click. Within three hours, our teams had hashed out a plan and set the wheels in motion for the first pick-up campaign for cell phone recycling. And at Cellular Recycler, we finally had a chance to take a campaign directly to the people.



Stay tuned – next I’ll talk about how we designed the collection program.

Making it Convenient to be Green

Thought you might want to see a featured piece on Cellular Recycler from Handset & Accessory magazine this month. I don’t know if you guys are on-line subscribers so click here to view the full article.

Metro P Cricket S

The Recession this country faces may actually be helping the low end wireless guys like Metro PCS and Cricket Wireless. Consumers are turning to VOIP at home or lighting up pre paid units to cut costs where they can. An article in the Wall Street Journal recently let its readers know of Metro PCS’s intent to re-use other carriers used phones. Our business is recycling these old phones and giving them new life but two name brand carriers of the pre-paid persuasion are now being more up front about what phones they let light up on their network. One wonders if this sales tactic or ploy is for activation numbers or an advertising effort to keep up with their Cricket Competitors. I am willing to bet we see the ‘green’ go away in my neighborhood and see the bright lights of orange, red and purple signs light up our pre-paid space here in Colorado.

Papa Johns partners with Cellular Recycler

Donate a Cell Phone, Enjoy Free Breadsticks, Support our US Troops and Protect the Environment

Colorado Papa John's pizza locations will be collecting old, unused, broken and still working cell phones this holiday season. Every customer who drops off or gives a cell phone to a Papa John’s delivery driver will be given a gift certificate for a FREE order of breadsticks with their next order. All cell phones will broken down for parts or refurbished by local Boulder company Cellular Recycler. All efforts are taken to protect the environment and prevent unused cell phones from polluting our landfills. Proceeds from the collection of these cell phones will be donated, on behalf of Papa John's Pizza of Colorado, to the Rocky Mountain USO to benefit our US Troops.

WHEN: NOV 5 thru DEC 15
WHO: Papa John’s Delivery Drivers asking for and picking up old, unused, broken and still working cell phones to benefit our US Troops and our precious environment.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit http://www.cellularrecycler.com/papajohns

i commute

For most of my professional career I have carried a standard issue cell phone. I use it like any other red blooded American. I make calls, send texts, and answer my voicemails. My good friend Sam Crumbaugh from Sony Ericsson http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/home?cc=us&lc=en who I have known for years always gives me my standard yearly issue Ericsson or so they are now called Sony Ericsson. I have been back and fourth with a few prototypes. Some good like the Z710 and others like the new 580i. The Z710i and I have a good relationship as it has held up well and been a good friend for years.

One of my fundamental problems being 36 is that I have always been on the outer cusp of being a high tech guy. I have been a part of the wireless industry for 12 plus years now and have never once got caught up in the hype of technology. New technology was not something that I was really interested in as I considered myself as the junk yard dog of the cell phone world. Whatever was produced and produced in mass would eventually be flowing downward and my recycling stream would pick it up.

I have a dead spot on my way home from work and as an old school salesman I am on the phone. I finally had it with T- Mobile and for the first time in my life considered actually purchasing a new phone. Keep in mind what I do. I have never ever had to get an activation much less actually purchase a ‘retail priced’ phone. With the current hype surrounding the iphone http://www.apple.com/iphone/ I graduated toward an AT&T store and immediately grabbed the display unit. I looked at my wife Anne and said ‘well which one the black or white’?

My hesitation or fear with a PDA was that I didn’t want to be connected to work 24/7 so I told myself that I would ease into this new devise and not make myself crazy.

I mentioned to you my resistance or ‘old school nature’ well that changed the second I opened the box and their was no manual. That was the coolest thing ever and I was hooked on whatever apple had in store with me and this new phone. I got the itunes, I got the email synced, I got the weather settings and some cool apps. Man, I love this phone!

As time goes by with anything excitement fades, but this is not what this story is about. I am sharing my thoughts with you as a small business owner today, as I am two months in with my new iphone. It is my job to know when it is a good idea for a person who works here at Cellular Recycler to have this kind of device and whether or not it can be a valuable tool to make a certain employee or there respective company more money. What I found in my situation living here in Boulder Colorado http://www.bouldercoloradousa.com/ is that my commute is short and my routine is steady. I live a few miles away. I am not stuck in Los Angeles traffic two hours each way. I get home, I go to the gym across the street, I make and eat dinner then I get on my computer for an hour or so. My routine as a small town businessman allows me to have computer access basically on command so the feature and fear of having my business life glued to my fingertips never became the reality.

The reality is this. From a phone guy, this is a cool phone. No doubt the coolest I have put in my pocket. But for a small business owner and having to make the decision for the income generators and decision makers of Cellular Recycler the coolness and infinite features doesn’t outweigh the $150 per month usage charge in our case of doing business in a small town.

Brandon Greenhaw

Hollywood needs a 'green' phone

The idea was posed here at Cellular Recycler to make a Green phone. Sure the idea of a recycled phone or a phone remanufactured from spare parts isn't a new idea; it is in fact darn near old as the cell phone industry is as a whole. But what about that very phone that is comprised of used parts that would include a green shell. Not just green plastic but actually 'green' recycled plastic that is actually the color GREEN.

This idea has been bounced around by between the management of Cellular Recycler but a conclusion has never been reached to actually pull the trigger on the molding and texture of this 'green' phone. One of our fundamental problems is that we needed to make this product cool for US consumers. Selling a used or vintage phone to today’s youth is a road that I quite frankly I will not spend the time on.

My thought at it's inception is that if we could find a Hollywood contingent that would find our product appealing and sport it as a fashion accessory to being a better steward of the environment then we will have a product that will in fact sell and has the potential for millions in revenue. You see what David Pinsky and Motorola are doing here in this article that makes so much sense: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/is_29_22/ai_63639213

Every company is looking for that green edge because that is the trend. Their isn't a fortune 500 company that wont have a snippet of sustainability phrasing in there website because it is a monkey see monkey do world. I do hope that the David Pinsky's of the world with the help of the millions that a company like Motorola has in their advertising and PR reserves will be interested in maybe a different type of campaign. A campaign and product line that lessens the global footprint on the earth my just making and selling new phones to their public. This plan would and could just be another model in Motorola’s lineup. Remember that Motorola has a job and that is to sell cell phones. This is just a new creative way to do it-

Brandon Greenhaw
Cellular Recycler