Take back and recycling are focus areas in Nokia's environmental work. They cover three different aspects in our activities: the recycling of the materials used in Nokia's operations and facilities, designing products for recycling, and the take back and recycling of obsolete products. The aim is to increase awareness of recycling and impact people's behavior to make sure that phones are returned for recycling at the end of their useful lives.

Small individual actions can add up to a big difference. If all mobile phone owners today – in other words, three billion people globally – brought back one unused device, we could save 240,000 tonnes of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the same effect as taking 4 million cars off the road. And most of us have not just one, but several unused phones lying around in our drawers.

Nokia supports individual producer responsibility. In order for us to carry out our own responsibilities we also need the help of others in the value chain, like consumers and retailers, and their commitment to bringing back obsolete mobile devices for responsible recycling. This co-operation eventually leads to a situation where environmentally optimised product design enables easier recycling. When these practices become commonplace they bring further benefits for consumers, producers, and the environment.

The life cycle approach

Nokia's aim is the vast return of majority of the materials used in our products back into circulation, in accordance with cradle-to-cradle thinking. This helps to minimise the energy consumption and the amount of chemicals that would be used in manufacturing. By making conscious choices in the design and by driving best practices in recycling, we can reduce our environmental impact.

Nokia is working hard to ensure that production scrap and invalid components, as well as the used mobile devices and old IT equipment of our employees, are all recycled. Our goal is to reduce all waste to a minimum. In addition, we have recycling requirements for our component suppliers.

The graph below shows how the material flow in manufacturing mobile phones is managed through the whole life cycle, from product design to the moment when you drop off your phone for recycling.

The recycling process

It is important that the materials that have been used for your phone can be safely recycled when the phone is no longer needed. We choose eco-efficient third party recycling companies to take care of the recycling of our products. 65-80% of the materials in a Nokia mobile phone can be recycled and given a second life. Best practices can recover 100% of the materials, partly as energy. To help recycling the cover parts of our phones are clearly marked as recyclable.

Efficient recycling starts by getting the products back and consolidating, sorting, and pre-treating them. We put a lot of effort in take-back and recycling supplier selection to ensure efficiency and the highest environmental benefit, following relevant health and safety standards. We have a network of recycling vendors worldwide who operate in accordance with our standards. The network consists of close to 80 recycling facilities globally.

The environmental impacts of recycling

A study by Nokia has shown that the energy consumption and the resulting CO₂ emissions in the last phase of the product's life cycle are relatively low. The average amount of CO₂ emissions from WEEE-standard recycling of 100 tonnes of electronic waste is 20 metric tonnes. In comparison, the US EPA calculates that the average US household produces 7.5 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emissions every year.

The refinement of recycled materials uses up to 85% less energy than the processing of a corresponding amount of virgin materials. As a result of avoided manufacturing phases, it can be estimated that the recycling of materials reduces CO₂ emissions in the manufacturing phase by 20 %.

On the average, the downstream transport accounts for 30% of the CO₂ emissions of recycling, pre-treatment for 15% and transport from the consolidation point to recycler for 55%. When the collection phase (end user activities, i.e. the user bringing the phone to the recycling point) is included, it dominates the CO₂ emissions of the end-of-life phase, leaving less than 3% to the recycling operations and logistics. This result is based on a rather modest assumption where 50% of users drive 5 km to the take back point – in reality, the figures may be higher. This is why take-back locations need to be close to consumers, and bringing used products to take-back points should be made easy.

The CO₂ emissions at end-of-life can be minimised by optimising transport in both inbound and outbound logistics. This effort should not sacrifice the use of state-of-the-art recycling to keep the environmental impact of these processes in control.