All smartphones are welcome – we don’t discriminate! However, newer models (max. 5 years old) will benefit the entrepreneur the most. We carefully evaluate the phones so that only working ones will get a new owner.
Yes, you can. We will refurbish it, unless it has reached the end of its life.
Only smartphones give access to internet, which is why we focus on them. With regards to non-smartphones, you can contact us and we will inform inform you about the most convenient way to recycle it.
Of course. Just fill out the form on our page with your details, and we will get back to you with instructions. Our partner We Encourage will work with us to ensure the money goes to the right place.
To help us with the process, we kindly ask you to remove the screen lock. It is easy to do, and you can find instructions on how to do it for Android, and iPhone . Most of us have a lot of photos and other valuable stuff on our phones, and we suggest doing a back up of the files and resetting the phone to factory settings.
We’re glad you asked! Once your phone arrives, we:
We issue the entrepreneur a smartphone along with a leasing contract through our local partnering distributor. The entrepreneur activates the new smartphone and gets advice on how to utilise it to support her business.
You will get the contact details of the entrepreneur who is leasing your phone upon request.
Yes. The entrepreneurs can be connected to the internet by purchasing data bundles of different sizes.
As electricity can be generated by solar energy, we provide our customers with solar chargers. Convenient and environmentally friendly!
We check each phone we receive, and recycle in Finland the phones that would not be fit for use by ourselves. We follow through the lifecycle of the phones we bring to entrepreneurs in Africa. When a phone in Nigeria reaches the end of its life, we bring it to Closing the Loop, who will process the phones by bringing them back to the EU for recycling. We are still working on similar programs in other markets.
A phone of 150 grams takes 420 grams of CO2 to ship from Finland to Cameroon. This is equivalent to driving a passenger car for 1.7 km. Emission which we would like not to produce, but it is significantly less than what it takes to manufacture a phone (22 kgs of CO2).
