Fairphone encourages European consumers to return their old devices through their “Return your old phones” take-back program. The customer gets a giftcard (reward) for returning their phones, which are either repaired/refurbished or remanufactured and recycled.

Nearly 50 million tons of e-waste is produced every year – that’s more than 6 kilograms for every person on the planet. Norway is no different: people switch out their phone somewhere between every 2-3 years depending on their age group. For the consumer to hand in the mobile phone and the charger for proper recycling is one of the most important environmental measures one can take for a more ethical life cycle for the mobile phone. Many of the mobile phone's ethical issues are related to expensive raw materials and environmental pollution from mobile components. Unfortunately, Norwegians are not so good at recycling mobile phones. Almost 2.5 million mobile phones are sold annually, but the recycling is not even 1 percent of this. Elretur, Norway's largest recycling company for electrical and electronic waste, says that most people have a drawer with old mobile phones at home instead. Only every fifth Norwegian does not have an old mobile phone in the drawer, while every second Norwegian has 1-2 mobile phones at home, while every fourth Norwegian has more than three mobile phones lying around.

Reusing and recycling our old phones plays an important role in saving valuable resources and lowering our environmental footprint. So in 2021, Fairphone doubling down on supporting their customers to give their old phones a new life. The system allows consumers to choose how they would like to receive their reward for returning their old phone (reward based take-back system). Consumers go on one of the Fairphone partner’s website to see how much their old phone is worth. After knowing the old phone’s value one can decide if one wants to return the phone or not.

In 2020 Fairphone alongside their partners managed to recycle over 17.000 phones. How?

- 40% get a new life: Phones that are still usable first get their data completely deleted. A simple repair like a new screen or battery is often all that’s necessary to bring an old phone back to life. The refurbished phones are sold through a trusted partner so someone else can enjoy them.

- 60% are safely recycled: In the end, every electronic product becomes e-waste. Phones that are no longer functional and cannot be repaired go to a European recycling facility where they’re processed to recover the valuable resources inside.