The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sees that most discarded cellphones cause harm when not disposed off in an organized fashion. It has now taken the initiative to promote awareness on the proper recycling of these devices. By the agency's estimates, as many as 150 million cellphones are taken out of service each year. The phones contain metals, plastics, glass and chemicals, all of which require energy to mine and make, and many of which could be hazardous if they ended up in landfills and leached into the ground. Moreover, many old cellphones still work and can be donated to charities or distributed to poor people. The $175,000 campaign - "Recycle Your Cell Phone. It's An Easy Call" - will rely heavily on public service announcements, particularly in lifestyle and technology magazines read by the 18- to 34-year-olds who trade up to new cellphones most often. The ads will stress environmental and social reasons for recycling. The agency also plans to release a podcast in which recycling specialists elaborate on their methodologies. The EPA said it would schedule several cellphone collections in 2008 and would post a searchable list of cellphone drop-off centers on Web sites, including www.epa.gov. It will also distribute posters with the "It's an easy call" tagline to partners, to post over drop-off bins.

"Our key role is to get the message out, that recycling cellphones is easy and convenient," said Hale, who estimated that 20 percent of unwanted cellphones are recycled or reused each year. Eleven companies - AT&T, Best Buy, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Office Depot, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Sprint, Staples and T-Mobile - are partners in the campaign. Each has promised to collect phones and hold recycling events. Now that's a clean solution for one huge environmental hurdle.

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