Recycle your “dead” cell phones at EarthFair

How many “dead” cell phones do you have? According to USA Today, Americans will discard more than 130 million of them a year by 2005.

    Now, you can free yourself of these toxic clunkers by recycling them at the EarthFair on April 27 in Balboa Park. You can drop off your phones at the Eco Imaging booth, at any Information Booth, or at a San Diego EarthWorks booth.

    This recycling effort is being coordinated by Eco Imaging, a company specializing in toner cartridge recycling. Their goal is to collect 1 million cell phones in California by Earth Day. The phones will be refurbished and resold, largely outside the United States. Proceeds from the recycling will be donated to the Cyctic Fibrosis Foundation.

    If you didn't just chuck your dead phone in the trash... good! It's full of toxic substances like arsenic, cadmium, lead and zinc that leak into the environment and have been associated with disease, including cancer.