Sprint, AT&T, Verizon Push eCycling Week, April 5-11

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pluginSprint, AT&T, Verizon and other cellular players are promoting their cell phone recycling services in advance of EPA's "Plug-In To eCycling National Cell Phone Recycling Week," April 5-11.

For its part, Sprint is kicking off an aggressive social media campaign to build upon the 3.7 million phones that it collected for reuse and recycling in 2009.

To market the effort, Sprint is launching a video on April 5 entitled "16,000 Phones" that features Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. Sprint will use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to give program updates and statistics.

Sprint says its collection rate for 2009 was 42 percent, up from 34 percent in 2008. So far, Sprint says since 2001 its efforts have diverted more than 20 million cell phones from landfills.

Sprint Project Connect accepts all wireless phones, batteries, accessories and data cards, regardless of carrier or condition.

AT&T is promoting its cell phone, battery and accessory recycling at its 2,000-plus stores, as well as via community drives and Internet efforts.

AT&T says that in 2009 it collected more than 4.2 million cell phones and 1.8 million pounds of batteries and accessories.

Also recently, AT&T announced plans to reduce the overall paper associated with its billing system, as well as to help consumers save electricity with charging devices.

A promotion with the Arbor Day Foundation would have AT&T plant a tree for each customer who converts to paperless billing. If a million customers switch to paperless billing, as the PayItGreen initiative seeks, 400,000 pounds of paper would be saved.

Verizon is offering free mailing labels for consumers who want to recycle devices, as well as promoting efforts in-store.

Samsung aims to collect a million phones for recycling in 2010, and it's using an in-school eduction program to help accomplish the goal, reports Environmental Protection.

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