Cell Phone Recycler Talks Trash

By Felicia Russell

Tall and slim, wearing a dark, double-breasted suit, Peter Schindler casually fingered his black Motorola Moto Razr V3 cell phone—which PCMag.com calls "the ultimate see-and-be-seen phone for style mavens who don't care about price."

"For me, I'm very simplistic about phones; I'd like not to own one," said Schindler, 31.

Not one to pass on an opportunity, however, Schindler saw a chance to capitalize on the popularity and perceived disposability of cell phones, and at the same time, do something positive for the environment and community.

CEO and founder of The Wireless Alliance Peter Schindler (Photo/TWA)

Four years ago, Schindler founded The Wireless Alliance (TWA), which has recently partnered with the University of Colorado at Boulder to collect used cell phones. The phones will be sold for parts or refurbishing, and a portion of the money earned will be donated to charities and student groups.

Although he employs just three other men, Schindler says he has big dreams for the future. "I would like to have our 'recycle your wireless phone' logo on the back of every phone with our 1-866 number on there," Schindler says.

The Wireless Alliance's "Recycle your wireless phone" logo (Image/TWA)

He has yet to splash his logo across the back of cell phones everywhere, but it is popping up on the CU campus.

The campus cell phone recycling effort, which is being led by the university's recycling director, Jack DeBell, began in late February with a 3-foot-tall plastic box. This box, bearing TWA's logo, has been placed in the University Memorial Center to encourage students to collect their old phones and donate them to the charity or student group of the month.

Profits from the first round of recycled cell phones will go to the Emergency Family Assistance Association, a Boulder-based group that provides emergency assistance for people struggling to pay housing, utilities and other necessary expenses. DeBell says he hopes that the association's high profile will stimulate interest among other non-profits in the community.

While DeBell says he doesn't really know Schindler, he is optimistic about the program.

"The one time that I visited Peter's Boulder location, I was impressed with the flurry of activity. It reminded me of our offices here. There was a sense of urgency, of excitement, and of potential," DeBell said.

Indeed, Schindler seems to be a font of energy and enthusiasm.

"I first went door to door literally asking my neighbors for their old phones. On my old street—Kohler Drive—I got about 1.8 phones per household. If you multiply this by the number of households using wireless phones, you get between 700 million to 1 billion out-of-use handsets in the United States alone," he said.

Schindler officially started TWA in January 2002. His first client was Midwest Wireless, a cell phone provider that serves people in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

TWA placed drop boxes in Midwest Wireless stores where customers could recycle their old phones.

"We're quite pleased with his performance and use him as our sole source of liquidation and recycling," said Tim Johnson, the Product Distribution Supervisor for Midwest Wireless.

Although he couldn't put a number on it, Johnson estimated that the recycling program has raised "hundreds of thousands of dollars," which the company then donates to non-profits like United Way and the American Cancer Society.

Johnson said that TWA is an extension of Schindler's personal values, and that it "stands for what he stands for."

"Peter is, among other things, extremely helpful. He is the type of person who will go out of his way to make things happen for you," says Johnson. "He is a generous person with his time and resources."

TWA has also developed a postage-paid mail-back program to encourage people to recycle cell phones they've stashed in drawers and closets. Midwest Wireless and KALW radio in Schindler's hometown of San Francisco are both using the mailing program.

Schindler says he comes from a long line of inventors including his mother, Anita, who developed Brainwash, which he says is the first café-laundromat in San Francisco, and his father, Robert, who retired from the University of California at San Francisco after a career spent advancing cochlear implant technology, which can help some deaf people hear.

Schindler recalls having always had a passion for art and music. He studied art history as a student at CU. After graduating in 1996, Schindler spent a brief time in his home state of California before returning to Colorado to work in the music industry. He worked for a Boulder company that managed the Greyboy Allstars, a band out of San Diego whose music can be heard in the film Zero Effect.

"Then after a while the music industry didn't pay for what it required. So, I got into cell phones. Once I realized the value of used phones and the good I could do by collecting them for donation—environmental reasons, etcetera—I went with that," Schindler said.

According to Schindler, his "stab at the American Dream" has been successful. Although he refused to say what his profits were in 2005, Schindler says that the money generated from selling the collected cell phones to be melted down or refurbished totaled as much as $4.2 million one year. The average inflow, he says, is about $3 million per year.

TWA pays part of that money back to its partners, who can earn 5 cents to more than $75 a phone, but tend to average $2 per phone, says Schindler. He declined to say what percentage of TWA's income is paid back to charities, but says his clients are happy.

"Generally, we like to give back 20 percent of the collection total at the end as a bonus. It is a strategy that has separated me from my competitors when dealing with non-profits," Schindler said. "They love it."

While he wouldn't say if TWA is out of the red and making a profit, records from his 2005 divorce suggest that the company is still in debt. Both he and his ex-wife were responsible for paying up to $100,000 towards the company's debt.

Nestled beside the Avery Brewery in a small warehouse in East Boulder, operating with only four sets of hands, TWA is earning enough to pay Schindler what he calls a "modest" income. According to his divorce records, that totaled $100,776 in 2005.

If trends in the wireless industry continue as they have in recent years, TWA faces a bright financial future.

Over the last 20 years, the number of wireless subscribers in the United States has risen from about 203,600 people to nearly 195 million people, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.

Cell phones have become a valuable tool in American society. However, wireless companies in the United States commonly mark down new cell phones and include the cost in their wireless plan, which makes them appear cheaper than they really are. This also makes them seem more disposable in the eyes of consumers.

In fact, most phones are only used for 18 months before being replaced with newer models, according to a study by Inform Inc., called "Waste in the Wireless World." The high turnover of phones in the United States is generating an estimated 130 million cell phones or 65,000 tons of waste per year.

Many of these phones wind up in landfills where they can become an environmental hazard. Like other electronic equipment, or e-waste, cell phones contain a number of heavy metals that could leach out and contaminate ground water.

A 2004 EPA-sponsored study found that nearly three-quarters of the 38 cell phones tested released enough lead to be considered toxic waste by the government when exposed to landfill-like conditions. Timothy G. Townsend, an associate professor in environmental engineering at the University of Florida, led the study.

"They (the public) should not be concerned about any grave threat to the environment by disposal of (cell phones) in modern lined landfills," Townsend wrote in an e-mail. "But, it is certainly understandable to in general be concerned where wastes that contain toxic chemicals are disposed and whether we should be finding alternatives to toxic chemicals in our products and whether we should do more to recycle them."

At TWA, the two men who do the grunt work of recycling have the task of disassembling cell phones. They check to see that the phone works, erase the memory, take out the batteries, and grind up the sim card, which contains personal information like calendars and friends' phone numbers.

Phones that can be resold are carefully catalogued and sorted into storage bins. Those phones that have become obsolete are tossed into a cavernous box containing thousands of other rejected phones.

Schindler's recycling box of 1990s behemoths will be sent to Reldan Metals Inc., where the phones will be shredded and processed to collect metals like gold, platinum, lead, silver and palladium.

According to Schindler, one ton of ancient cell phones might yield $4,000 to $5,000 in precious metals including gold, platinum, silver and palladium, as well as copper and lead. The metals extracted from cell phones might be used to make CDs, underwire bras, drills, tire irons, sandals, remote control cars, even singing bass trophies, says Schindler.

He estimates that 40 percent of the more than 20,000 phones that TWA collected in February went straight to the recycle box. The newer models in Schindler's warehouse are sold each month to companies that refurbish the phones and resell them to customers using a prepaid wireless service.

Schindler doesn't see the market slowing any time in the near future.

"I hope that I can continue this business of recycling and keep it changing like a chameleon with the technology," Schindler said. "I hope to educate as many people as possible about the right thing to do with their phones."