世論 What Japan Thinks

Given that it seems most people upgrade their cell phones once every year or so (I actually haven’t seen any data for this!), MyVoice decided to look at the issue of mobile phone recycling.

Demographics

Over the first five days of May 2007, 15,165 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 46% of the sample was male, 2% in thier teens, 18% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

I passed my previous phone back to a DoCoMo shop for recycling, and I suppose I have to trust them to completely reset all the internal memory. Mobile phone manuals are often huge tomes that are rather difficult to find your way around – I’d prefer to refuse them for a small discount, and rely on some decent web search to find what I’m looking for. On their web site, DoCoMo offer PDF copies of their manuals for download, so I wonder why they don’t promote manual-less phones?

Note that most of the 3G Japanese phones come with SIM cards, so old phones can be used by just inserting the current, live card into the old phone.

Survey results

Q1: Have you ever upgraded a mobile phone or cancelled a contract for one, etc? (Sample size=15,165)

Yes	88.0%
No	12.0%

Q2: What did you do with your old phone or phones? (Sample size=upgrader and contract breakers, multiple answer)

Still have it (to SQ)	74.3%
Passed to shop for recycling	33.9%
Threw it away in non-burnable rubbish	8.7%
Forgot how I disposed of it	4.1%
Passed it to friends or family	3.4%
Sold it at net auction, etc	1.2%
Other	1.2%
No answer	0.2%

Q2SQ: Why did you keep your old phone or phones? (Sample size=old phone keepers, multiple answer)

Collecting it, as a memory	34.0%
Worried about leaking personal information	30.0%
Use it for photographs, album	25.3%
Toy for children to play with	24.8%
Want to keep mail records	22.5%
Don’t know how to recycle it	11.8%
As a back up in case new one breaks	11.5%
Use it when situation requires	1.3%
Other	12.1%
No answer	0.3%

Q3: What did you do with the manuals for your old phone or phones? (Sample size=upgrader and contract breakers, multiple answer)

Threw out as burnable rubbish	37.9%
Threw out for paper recycling	28.3%
Keep them around	23.0%
Forgot how I disposed of it	12.8%
Other	1.9%
No answer	2.5%

Q4: If there was an older, out of production model that had features you wanted, would you buy a used phone? (Sample size=15,165)

Will buy	11.4%
Won’t buy	66.7%
Don’t know	20.7%
No answer	1.1%