His first mobile phone resembled a brick, and in the 15 years since that purchase, Sun Taiyou has upgraded and bought four more mobile phones.

Sun, a civil servant in the taxation bureau of east China's Jiangsu Province, disposed of his previous four mobile phones by giving them to his family or friends. But along with the batteries, he tossed out his phone accessories with other consumer waste.

What Sun did not realize was that such disposal of mobile phone waste can result in serious pollution to underground water and soil, as well as to human health. Many mobile phone batteries contain nickel and cadmium, which can sometimes cause cancer. The circuit board inside the phone often contains toxic metals, like lead, mercury and zinc. And the plastic shell does not easily degrade in a natural environment.

But now Sun has found another way to deal with his retired mobile phones without polluting the environment.

Yesterday in Beijing, China Mobile, Nokia and Motorola jointly launched a new national recycling project called "Green Box," which provides a solution for anyone with unwanted mobile phones and accessories.

Special boxes will be set out in about 1,000 branches of China Mobile and 150 sales shops and maintenance centers of Nokia and Motorola nationwide to collect old mobile phones.

The collected phones will be sent to factories, which are specially appointed by the three communications companies, to go through recycling process.

The Green Box project will go into effect over the next three months, during which there will be encouragement for more mobile phone users to get rid of their unwanted phones in an environmentally friendly manner.

In October, there were more than 380 million mobile phone users in China. And, whether replacing a stolen phone or catching up on the latest fashion trend, the average mobile phone user will usually change his or her phone every year or one and half years, according to the survey by China Mobile,

"I am glad to see that the communication companies are aware of the environmental issues," said Zhao Hualin, vice-director of the pollution controlling department of the State Environmental Protection Administration.

(China Daily December 9, 2005)