Mobile phone buyers in Japan will help finance African e-scrap collection and recycling, under a new partnership between FCNT, Dutch company Closing the Loop and Japanese trading giant ITOCHU.
A social enterprise, Closing the Loop partners with sellers of IT hardware to help finance the collection of phones in a number of African countries, where the scrap devices are purchased, aggregated and eventually shipped to Europe for final metals recovery.
Buyers of new devices can pay a fee to help finance the waste-compensation model.
In a Feb. 8 press release, Closing the Loop noted it struck an agreement with FCNT, a leading mobile phone brand in Japan that is launching a flagship phone, the “Arrows N F-51C.” ITOCHU Corporation, an international trading conglomerates based in Japan, is the main partner in the effort, through which every Arrows N F-51C phone sold will help fund Closing the Loop’s “waste compensation” program.
FCNT is the first smartphone manufacturer in Japan to sign on to the service, the release notes. Closing the Loop has struck previous deals with Vodafone and Fairphone. It has also worked with Ingram Micro, which has a large ITAD presence in the U.S.
Closing the Loop anticipates collecting 4 million scrap phones in 2023.
