Cell phone collection campaign in Dortmund: Valuable raw materials for a better world!

Cell phone collection campaign in Dortmund: Valuable raw materials for a better world!

The city of Dortmund has taken an important step towards environmental protection and sustainable use of resources. From now on, old cell phones and mobile phones can be collected in the military sewing and repair café. This initiative takes place in the Ricarda-Huch-Realschule at Prinz-Friedrich-Karl-Straße 72-78, as lokalkompass.de reports. The next collection date is scheduled for June 16, 2025 from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

The main goal of this collection is the proper recycling of the donated cell phones. These devices contain valuable metals such as gold, silver and platinum that can be used to create new products. The campaign also aims to support the people in the areas where these raw materials are mined, where serious environmental and human rights problems are often faced. Ruhr24.de highlights that old cell phones contain around 30 different metals, including cobalt, which is often mined under extremely poor conditions.

Regular appointments and offers

Further collection dates are planned for the second half of 2025: Cell phones can also be dropped off on September 15th, October 27th, November 17th and December 15th, from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. In addition to the cell phone collection, there is the opportunity to bring things to repair or sew in order to also take sustainability into account in these areas.

Visitors to the repair café also have the opportunity to chat over coffee and homemade cake and find out about the topics of repair and upcycling. Regional mobile phone providers are a great support for the collection of current mobile phones. They regularly bring new models onto the market, which often significantly shortens the lifespan of older devices. This makes such a collection campaign all the more necessary.

The campaign in North Rhine-Westphalia is also supported by the Energy Efficiency Service Center (dlze), which also carries out collection campaigns in the Berswordt Hall. Participants in these promotions even have the chance to win attractive prizes, including 500 euros or a FairPhone 2 for the 30th participant. The proceeds from recycling cell phones go to human rights projects run by organizations such as Bread for the World and the United Evangelical Mission.

Contact and information

For those interested, there is an overview of all repair and sewing cafés in Dortmund, which is available in the Downtown East senior citizens' office in the Wilhelm-Hansmann-Haus, Märkische Straße 21. Contact information for the seniors' office is available by telephone at (0231) 50-2 78 00 or by email at seniorenbuero.ost@dortmund.de.