In May and June 2012 the Bavarian Ministry of State for the Environment and Health set up collection boxes for old unused mobile phones in various schools, agencies and companies with the motto \”Clever mobile phone disposal\”. The goal of this campaign was to sensitize the public to the topic of raw material recycling. The valuable raw materials contained in mobile phones such as gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper should also be reintroduced into the utilisation cycle and the disposal of old mobile phones with the household waste should be prevented due to the harmful substances they contain. The Baur Group successfully participated in this campaign. 180 so-called \”drawer mobile phones\” could be handed over to State Secretary Melanie Huml at the corporate headquarters in Altenkunstadt. \”Raw materials are a precious commodity and not indefinitely available. Future challenges include correct recycling of raw materials and dealing responsibly with our resources,\” stresses State Secretary Melanie Huml. \”An estimated 85 million mobile phones have been left in drawers in Germany, with an estimated 13 million in Bavaria – getting to part of this abundance of resources was the point of our campaign.\”

In May and June collection boxes were set up in the Baur Group at various gates and reception counters. Mass emails, flyers, posters and reports on the company\’s internal intranet informed employees of this campaign. Some of them brought not just their family\’s old mobile phones but also those of friends and acquaintances.

\”From the start I was sure that our corporate group\’s employees would diligently bring in their old mobile phones,\” said Erhard StrÖhl, the division manager responsible for the company\’s environmental management. He added, \”In our company all employees are very sensitized to environmental topics – after all, we defined environmental protection as a corporate goal back in 1999.\”

A customer dialogue team in the Burgkunstadt service centre was particularly diligent in collecting old mobile phones. The team members turned in a total of 68 \”drawer mobile phones\”. When handing over the phones, Antje SchrÖppel, the team leader, revealed the secret of this collecting success: \”I led with a positive example and put four of our family\’s old mobile phones in the collection box. Then I told my colleagues about it – that motivated a lot of people to also look for \”drawer mobile phones!\”

Background of the \”Clever mobile phone disposal\” campaign

The objective of the \”Clever mobile phone disposal\” campaign was to raise awareness and collect the \”abundance of raw materials in mobile phones.\” A scientific study at TU Berlin for 2007 even showed 20% \”trash can mobile phones\” and only 4% that were properly collected at public collection stations or through the collection systems of the mobile phone manufacturers and distributors. In the meantime, the number of \”drawer mobile phones\” in Germany is estimated at 85 million. They contain not only poisonous substances but also valuable raw materials such as gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper, which can be put back into goods production as so-called secondary raw materials and the recycling of which is clearly more environmentally friendly and energy saving than the exploitation of primary raw materials.

You can get more information on the success of the \”Clever mobile phone disposal\” campaign here:

www.handy-clever-entsorgen.de

About the Baur Group

As a member of the worldwide active Otto Group, the Baur Group consists of 12 central companies and brands with a focus on commerce and commerce-related services. This includes, for example, Baur Versand, Baur Fulfillment Solutions, I\’m walking, mirapodo and the Kaufhaus Kaufwelt Baur. The Baur Group has a total of about 4,500 employees. The headquarters are located in Burgkunstadt, in Upper Franconia. The Baur Group is active in Austria and Switzerland via its subsidiary Unito with brand names such as Universal, Otto