The take-back and recycling awareness campaigns aim at driving behavioral changes amongst consumers and educating mobile phone users about the importance of recycling. The Indian consumer research findings have revealed that recycling is not in the consumers’ mindspace. The first pilot campaign was launched on 1st of January, 2009 in 4 cities – Bangalore, Delhi, Gurgaon, and Ludhiana.

During the pilot, Nokia encouraged mobile phone users to recycle their old handsets and accessories, regardless of the brand, and promised to plant a tree for every phone dropped during the campaign period in these cities. As a result, over 3 tons of old phones and accessories were collected in 45 days of the campaign period from these 4 cities.

The lessons from the successful pilot campaign were considered for development of the second phase campaign which was launched in September 2009.