Earn up to £800 for your smartphone without getting out of your house!

Recycling your smartphone with I Need A Mobile couldn’t be easier under Covid-19 circumstances. You literally do not need to get out of your house! Our mobile recycling service has been going for ten years and you can be sure we have thought of everything. We also offer the most competitive prices on all makes and models. Not only that, you will receive your payment directly into your bank account on the same day we receive your device!

Here’s how to recycle your smartphone with I Need A Mobile:

Step 1

The first thing you need to do is head over to sell.ineedamobile.com. When you do, you’ll see this search box at the top. Find your device, select if it is working or non-working and choose the network it is on to reveal our price. Follow through and place your order.

Step 2

We will organise a next day collection via DPD who will send a driver to your address between 9AM-12PM on the next working day of placing your order. If you make an order after 5PM or the weekend, then your device will be collected the following working day. You will receive a text message prior to the collection so you can make sure your package is ready. You can pack your device in anything you deem appropriate. Just make sure it’s safely packed and includes your order number.

Step 3

Once we receive your device, we will test it to ensure it meets our basic terms and conditions of functionality etc and then make your same day payment via BACS directly into your bank account. That’s it!

What happens to recycled smartphones?

Recycled smartphones can be refurbished and put back into service or recycled so their constituent parts can be used to make new electronics.

Refurbishment

It is sometimes economical to refurbish a smartphone so it can be resold and find a new home. Things like a broken screen, dodgy battery or broken connection ports can be fixed so the smartphone is usable once again.

At I Need A Mobile, we inspect all the smartphones sent into us via our recycling programme to determine if they can be refurbished. Our decision is based on whether or not repairs make economical sense.

A refurbished smartphone is a smartphone that has been professionally inspected, tested and repaired where necessary. It is then given a condition grade and sold with a warranty or guarantee. Our warranty lasts a full 12-months.

Part salvaging

If a phone cannot be refurbished economically, then the individual components of it may be worth salvaging if they work. For example, batteries and displays on new iPhone models can be removed and resold to stay in service.

Recycling

If smartphones sent into us cannot be refurbished and resold, then we send them to organisations who specialise in recycling electronics. There are several recycling centres in the UK that have perfected the art of phone recycling.

Recycling plant operations differ but the general process of phone recycling involved smashing up hundreds of phones at scale and sorting the waste. Metals, glass and plastics are separated and sent onto refineries.

According to Recycle Now, around 80% of a smartphone is recyclable. They are mostly made from glass, metal and plastic with some precious metals.

Is smartphone recycling good for the environment?

Manufacturing the average smartphone is estimated to output around 16kg of CO2. This means before a smartphone even enters distribution, it has contributed more CO2 to the atmosphere than you exhale in 11 days.

Over 1.5 billion smartphones are manufactured a year, so you’re talking over 20 billion kilograms of CO2 just to make new smartphones. Throw in the emissions of logistics and distribution, and this number multiplies twice.

Recycled smartphones have already been manufactured so they have already output the bulk of their emissions. By choosing a refurbished smartphone, you reduce the demand for new smartphones by 1, which doesn’t sound a lot, but if 0.1% of the UK population did this, we would save over 20 million tonnes of CO2 a year.