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A company headquartered in Burnaby has created a program to keep old phone cases out of landfills - the place they would end up even if they were placed in the blue recycling bin.
Eco-Train Inc. launched the first-of-its-kind phone case recovery program on Global Recycling Day on March 18. The company states that while there are sustainably-made phone cases available, recycling depots will not process them - creating a gap Eco-Train sought to fill. The program aims to unite major mobile accessory brands, retailers, and distributors in a collaborative effort to eliminate landfill waste.
“Eco-Train saw the opportunity to bring business and manufacturers together to share the responsibility for recycling phone cases to encourage and foster a healthy circular economy,” says Bob Cain, CEO and founder at Eco-Train. “Our phone case recovery program offers the most affordable and effective solution to reduce plastic waste generated by the phone case industry in Canada, this means hundreds of tons of waste a year saved from our landfills.”
To recycle your falling-apart phone case with Eco-Train you can use their store locator to find the closest drop-off location to you. Carried by an expanding number of businesses, Eco-Train’s drop off boxes will accept cases made of all materials except those containing batteries or made of metal.
For a sense of scale, more than 31 million Canadians own a smartphone. With smartphone users only holding onto their cases for an average of 25 months, Eco-Train estimates Canadians use 35 million phone cases each year.
“We all rely on phone cases to protect our most indispensable device,” reads a media release from Eco-Train. “These phone cases contribute to our world’s plastic pollution, ending up in landfills coast-to-coast at an unthinkable rate”
