Press Releases

What happens to old out-of-date phones? It's estimated that more than 100 million cell phones are thrown away, or stuffed in a drawer, each year. The San Diego Zoo, along with Eco-Cell, a cellular phone recycling company, has launched a free-of-charge cell phone-recycling program at both the Zoo and San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park to encourage visitors to recycle.

By recycling a phone, guests can feel confident they are helping protect local landfills from potentially hazardous chemicals found in cell phones and accessories such as arsenic, antimony, cadmium, cobalt, copper, lead, and zinc. Guests will also be helping to protect gorillas in central Africa from habitat loss and slaughter for the illegal bushmeat trade. Although cell phones and the extinction of gorillas may seem like an uncommon connection, according to wildlife experts, they are closely linked.

"Cell phones contain a rare ore called coltan, which is mined in central Africa. Increased mining operations over the past decade have greatly impacted the habitat and caused increased hunting pressure on gorillas and other wildlife in the area," explained Karen Killmar, San Diego Zoo associate curator of mammals. "The cell phone boom induced a flood of more than 10,000 illegal miners into protected parks in central Africa. Many of these miners, lacking food resources and encouraged by the companies that employ them, have hunted gorillas, elephants, and other species of mammals and birds to near extinction in these areas."

According to the United Nations, in the past five years the eastern lowland gorilla population in the Congo has declined 90 percent. Reducing the demand for coltan may help save these animals and their habitat.

Cell phone collection boxes are located at the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park exits. All makes and models, chargers, and batteries are accepted for recycling, whether they are in good working condition or not. All cell phones and accessories collected will be reused, or properly recycled. Some phones are donated to charities such as battered women's programs and senior citizens groups.

The 100-acre San Diego Zoo is operated by the not-for-profit Zoological Society of San Diego. The Zoological Society, dedicated to the conservation of endangered species and their habitats, engages in conservation and research work around the globe. The Zoological Society also manages the 1,800-acre San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park (more than half of which has been set aside as protected native species habitat) and the department of Conservation and Research for Endangered Species (CRES), and is working to establish field stations in five key ecological areas worldwide.

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