product responsibility
TELUS return and recycle program
In July 2005, TELUS launched a national phone recycling program designed to support a greener future for Canadians by reducing waste in landfills. The program invites consumers to bring any mobile phone or accessory they no longer use to a TELUS corporate store or participating dealer for recycling. We have experienced limited success. Of the approximate 2.5 million handsets sold by TELUS every year, only 10,200 phones and 79,000 accessories (batteries, chargers, etc.) were recycled through TELUS' program in 2006. To date we have had no targets for this program. However, in 2007, we commit to recovering at least 20,000 handsets.
The electronics (phones, batteries, chargers, etc.) are recovered at dealer locations and shipped to provincial centres where they are sorted. Undamaged equipment is often refurbished and resold with all proceeds donated to charity. Older items are recycled for components such as plastic, glass and metals. All work is completed by reputable recycling companies which are carefully researched by TELUS to confirm that their processes meet our standards.
We endeavour to ensure that all work in the recycling process is completed in Canada, and while this can prevent useful electronic hardware from reaching developing markets in Africa and Asia where it may be needed, it also ensures Canadian e-waste is not dumped into poorer economies where there is insufficient infrastructure to properly dispose of these wastes.
The mobile phone recovery program forms an important part of other processes we have had in place for electronic waste (e-waste) recovery for many years on a voluntary basis. Recently we have seen regulatory changes to the stewardship of e-waste. However, current definitions of e-waste do not include mobile devices. Despite a lack of regulation, TELUS will continue to divert as much of these products from landfill as possible.
Procurement
TELUS has had an environmentally responsible procurement policy in place since March 2003. The policy states that TELUS supports the purchase of recycled or environmentally preferred products whenever they perform satisfactorily and can be purchased for a reasonably competitive price. TELUS currently utilizes total cost analysis (considering price, social and environmental factors) on a case-by-case basis. For example, while renewing our contracts for the purchase of network switching components, an evaluation was done including source of supplier (local versus international), percentage of components ultimately ending up in landfills, nature of components toxicity, energy (used in construction or required to use the item) and finally cost. We intend to expand the use of total cost analysis in our procurement and network development in 2007.
