81% of British population upgrade their mobile phones every 1 to 2 years and thus the pile of old mobile phones keep increasing.

It has been a growing phenomenon of recycling used mobile phones for cash. An estimated 90 million old mobile phone handsets are available to recycle in the UK.

In the current economic climate, consumers would like the opportunity to earn some extra cash by recycling their used mobile phones. Apart from this, an additional benefit is the opportunity to play one's part in helping the environment.

Nokia is encouraging mobile phone recycling and has recently conducted a study to accurately understand customers' behaviours and attitudes towards the same. This study was conducted by interviewing six thousand people in thirteen different countries, including - Finland, Brazil, Indonesia, United States, UK, Russia, Italy, Germany, Sweden, China, India, Nigeria, and the UAE.

The study revealed that only 3% of mobile phone users currently recycle their old mobile phones and almost 75% of users did not know how to recycling a phone or were completely unaware that mobile phone recycling was possible.

To solve this problem, Nokia has launched a take back program in which users can drop off their used mobile phones at any Nokia Center.

Nokia was ranked as the greenest company in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, which was released last month. Due to the success of its take-back program, and also for educating consumers by providing adequate information on how to recycle old and used mobile phones.