Schools and businesses battled it out to see who could recycle the most mobile phones on Friday, in an ACT government move designed to combat the low mobile recycling rates.
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The government is trying to limit phones going to landfill, with recycling group Mobile Muster estimating there are 23 million unused mobile phones lying around Australian homes.
Ros Malouf, a senior manager in government agency Actsmart, said businesses and schools should collect mobile phones that "are hanging around in the junk drawer, or at the back of the cupboard" and recycle them.
"There are places all around the city that collect them – stationery stores and post bags from organisations like Mobile Muster," she said.
Ms Malouf said it wasn't a bad idea for people to delete personal information before they recycle their phone, but it was not a huge issue as most old phones were unusable.
"If people do have concerns then they can wipe the data," she said. "Although I understand many of these phones are so old that people don't have the chargers anymore."
More than 70 per cent of Australians are aware they should recycle their mobiles, but less than one in three people have ever done so.
Mobile Muster says a number of valuable materials are found inside a mobile phone, including gold, silver, copper aluminum and coltan, and more than 96 per cent of material used in phones and accessories is recyclable.
