A company smartphone fits in a pocket, yet it carries email, contacts, chat history, two-factor apps and often access to internal systems. WMG Waste eRecycling provides phone recycling for smartphones and tablets: secure data wiping, resale of usable handsets and WEEELABEX certified recycling for the rest, with a certificate for every device logged by serial number.

What makes old phones a data and safety risk?

Phones sit at the crossroads of personal and business data. Even after a factory reset, a device that was not properly erased can leave traces, and a phone that is thrown away whole still contains a lithium-ion battery that can start a fire in a waste truck or sorting line. Phones also hold small amounts of gold, silver, copper and rare metals in their circuit boards, which are only recovered when the device goes to a proper recycler.

For a business, the risk multiplies. A drawer of twenty old handsets is twenty sets of mailbox access, customer contacts and saved logins.

How should you prepare company phones before handing them over?

A few steps on your side make reuse possible and speed things up:

• Remove the devices from your mobile device management (MDM) system.
• Switch off activation locks such as Find My iPhone or Google account protection. A locked phone cannot be resold.
• Take out SIM and memory cards, or tell us they are still inside.
• Keep chargers and cables with the phones if you have them.

If some phones are broken, locked or of unknown status, send them anyway. They will be handled as data-bearing devices regardless.

What does WMG do with the phones once collected?

We give you an itemized receipt at pickup and log each device by serial number or IMEI. Working phones are wiped with NIST 800-88 compliant methods so they can be refurbished and resold, and the proceeds are returned to you. Phones that cannot be wiped are physically destroyed. Everything that cannot be reused goes to WEEELABEX certified recycling, where we recover up to 95% of materials.

More detail on the erasure side is on our page about data destruction for phones. If you mainly want to know what your fleet is worth, see our phone buyback options.

Which records do you get at the end?

A certificate of data destruction per device, a recycling report after processing, and the collection receipt. Those three documents let your privacy officer show that every handset was accounted for, which is exactly what a GDPR audit will ask about.

Replacing your mobile fleet? Get a free quote for collecting the old devices.