Good to Be Green

Stop procrastinating; it's time to make your new year's resolutions. Sure, wireless carriers can resolve to lower prices, offer better customer services or improve voice-service quality, but those are givens each and every year. Why not take the road less traveled and pledge to make wireless a super hero as well as a super industry? From the environment to customers, wireless can make a difference in 2001.

American carriers need only look to their mates down under to see super successful pro-environment programs in action. Sponsored by the Australia Mobile Telecommunications Association, the Australian wireless industry has recycled approximately 30 tons of wireless phones, batteries and accessories since 1999. The program, which initially recycled batteries only, collected more than 100,000 batteries during its first six months of operations. The Mobile Phone Industry Recycling Program is funded by participating manufacturers and carriers including Ericsson, Nokia, Orange, Telstra and Vodafone. The companies chip in about 40 each from the sale of new mobile handsets.

Other programs that help carriers make a difference:

CollectiveGood refurbishes donated wireless phones for reuse by economically challenged people in the United States and Latin America. For information, contact Seth Heine at 770-856-9021 or visit collectivegood.com.

The CTIA Call to Protect program collects and refurbishes wireless phones to donate to victims of domestic violence. For information, contact Heidi Fincken at 202-785-0081 or visit www.wirelessfoundation.com.

Rechargeable Battery Recycling recycles NiCd batteries from wireless phones and other rechargeable devices. The company provides everything needed to set up recycling centers in carriers' retail stores, free of charge. Visit www.rbrc.org.

[C] Bell Canada, parent company of Bell Mobility, will donate $1 million over three years to Ontario's Promise, a development and mentoring program for children. The carrier already gives $2.7 million to other charitable organizations in Ontario. Bell Canada also backs up its employees' volunteer efforts with a program that gives $2,500 to each organization to which its employees volunteer.

[C] Chad Bonvillain, better known as the wrestler Bronco Bob, saved a man from a wrecked and burning truck with a wireless phone in one hand. Bonvillain used one hand of his near-400-pound brawn to open the truck's mangled door while talking to police with his wireless phone in the other hand. Bonvillain carried the man to safety just before the flames entered the cab. The driver had collided with a tractor-trailer and was charged with drunken driving.

[C] Now subscribers can get extra wireless minutes with their slurpees. 7-Eleven stores now offer replenishment cards for Verizon Wireless prepaid service. Customers can buy minutes for Verizon's local and national prepay service, in increments ranging from 60 to 750 minutes.