Verizon Feeling Green This Season

Verizon Wireless wants your old useless handset this holiday season. They’re calling out to anyone who found a new mobile in their stocking this year to bring their old stuff up to any Verizon Wireless location to donate it. Verizon will use the phones in their HopeLine Phone Recycling Program, which uses handsets and funds to help survivors of domestic violence.

If the phone is still usable, it can be used as an emergency handset for victims. A federal requirement is that all cellphones be able to make a 9-1-1 emergency call, regardless of whether they are active or not. You can also take your handset to any battered woman’s shelter in your area for them to use for the same purpose.

Please remember, if you’re going to donate your handset, to delete all of your personal information from the memory, such as contacts, pictures, and anything else.

Some interesting statistics on the HopeLine program, it has kept more than 200 tons of handsets out of landfills. They’ve collected nearly 4.2 million wireless phones and properly disposed of 1 million of them (it doesn’t say what happened to the other 3.2 million handsets. Hmmmm.) Verizon’s HopeLine has also, since 1999, given more than $4 million in cash grants and over 45,000 phones with airtime to domestic violence prevention organizations.