Game launched to discourage landfill disposal of mobile phones

A new game designed to encourage people not to dispose of their mobile phone handsets so regularly has been launched.

Environphone, the world's largest recycler of mobile phones, has released Battle Fones, a game developed by entertainment firm Matmi, which allows players to fight it out in a bid to increase the trade-in value of their current mobile phones.

The firm runs a programme promoting handset exchanging rather than disposal.

Jon Butler, the creative and marketing manager for Environphone, stated: "Business has doubled year-on-year since 2005 and we hope this advergame will help us get the message across that we pay cash for old handsets and reuse or recycle them responsibly."

He added that statistics show 96 per cent of youngsters aged between 15 and 24 own a mobile phone and it is important to get them into "good habits" to ensure "mobile recycling becomes the norm".

Mobile phone company Sprint is currently running a campaign to collect 250,000 mobile phones for recycling.