Highlight: Phones for Loans!

Today, I am writing my first highlight piece for this blog. From this point on highlight posts will contain an organization, group, tactic, or tool that I believe is making a real difference in the world. The highlights will focus on particularly interesting or unique ideas that are out there in the realm of microfinance.

This first highlight will be on RTEP, Recycle to Eradicate Poverty. This grassroots organization is trying to get more people involved during this year's Earth Week. Recycle to Eradicate Poverty is an initiative started by The Chiapas Project in 2007. The Chiapas Project was started by a few young college students in 2007 at the University of North Texas. This small group was formed as a fundraising partnership between a non-profit microfinance fund and a for profit recylcing plant to provide loans to small businesses in Latin America.

RTEP's claim to fame is their idea to collect old cell phones to get recycled. It has been calculated that about 170 million cell phones are retired each year. Only about 20% of those retired cell phones will be safely recycled. The rest will sit in people's houses collecting dust or in landfills creating pollution due to the materials in the cell phone. RTEP has been able to create a new and unique way of getting people involved and get them to recylce their cell phones. RTEP has collected about 14,000 cell phones but to this point. This achievement was noticed by many including the Clinton Global Initiative University. The Clinton Global Initiative University rewards grants to the most innovative, high impact work that will have lasting positive effects and change. This grant has allowed the RTEP initiative to flourish to what it is now. Currently, RTEP has a website that allows people to join in on the work of this initiative for free. Anyone can go on the site and order as many pre paid postage baggies. Each baggie can contain up to five cell phones. These baggies are collected by RTEP and given to the their recycling plant, Phoneraiser. The cell phone with value can also be refurbished and sold at a small margin in regions where cell phones are too expensive to buy. RTEP has partnered with many schools in their region and many local businesses. They hope to be able to collect 1 million phones or more eventually. They believe this will save about 350 trillion gallons of water from pollution and make changes in 100,000 lives in Latin America. They will use the proceeds from recylcing and resale of the phones to give out small loans to women in Latin America looking to start a small business to get out of poverty.

I believe this a great way to make a difference in the world. They are making a difference in the enviornment by recycling but they are also making a difference in individual lives by giving small loans in the form of microfinance. I hope more people become familiar with this initiative and start to recycle more of their cell phones. I think it would be great to start competitions in schools to see which kid or class can collect the most cell phones. I hope they will get more national attention and more people can get involved. I know I will be sending them my next cell phone.