Now that the average amount of time American consumers own any one cellular/wireless phone has dropped to less than two years, there are lots of options for recycling or disposing of these phones that are environmentally friendly.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency estimates that only 10 percent of those phones are recycled each year. The agency adds that recycling the 100 million cell phones that are no longer used annually would save enough energy to power 18,500 U.S. households for a year.

The EPA says phones and accessories are made from valuable materials such as precious metals, copper and plastics — all of which require a significant amount of energy to extract and manufacture.

Before you donate:

1. Erase all stored information, including your incoming/outgoing phone numbers, phone book and text messages.

2. Make sure the cell phone account has been completely deactivated.

Some organizations refurbish the phones to be used again. Others recycle the materials rather than send them to a landfill or incinerator.

The EPA is holding Plug-In To eCycling's National Cell Phone Recycling Week 2009 — April 6 to 12 — a joint effort with leading cell phone manufacturers, service providers and retailers to increase the awareness and recycling rates for cell phones and Personal Digital Assistants.

Plug-In To eCycling partners supporting this EPA campaign are: AT&T, Best Buy, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Office Depot, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Sprint, Staples, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.

Many companies will provide return shipping labels/postage /prepaid envelopes to mail in your outdated equipment.

For example, Sprint hands out plastic mailing envelopes roughly the size of a quart-sized zip-top bag. Consumers drop the wireless phones, batteries and accessories for free into the envelope.

Sprint donates the net proceeds to Keep America Beautiful. We picked up some of these at a local public library. But there's also a Web site: www.kab.org/phonerecycling.

In Hawai'i, Verizon Wireless' HopeLine Program last year received more than 9,340 donated phones which are then used to help survivors of domestic violence.

Those donations made it possible for Verizon Wireless to provide 284 wireless phones with 852,000 minutes of service to domestic violence agencies throughout Hawai'i to help victims and survivors rebuild their lives, a spokeswoman said.

The program accepts wireless phones, batteries and accessories in any condition from any wireless service provider are accepted in Verizon Wireless' stores nationwide. For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline.

The way it works is that phones that can be refurbished are sold for reuse and those without value are disposed of in an environmentally sound way. Proceeds from the HopeLine program are used to provide wireless phones and cash grants to local shelters and nonprofit organizations that focus on domestic violence prevention and awareness.

Last year, Verizon Wireless awarded more than $18,000 in cash grants to two Hawai'i domestic violence agencies through this program.

Since the 2001 launch of Verizon Wireless' national recycling program, the company has collected more than 5.6 million phones and HopeLine has also distributed more than 76,000 phones with more than 228 million minutes of free wireless service to victims of domestic violence.

The company collected 29,349 phones in Hawai'i from 2005 to 2008 and turned over 645 from 2004 to 2008 for direct use by agencies, according to HopeLine here.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.