Old mobile phones sought for Starship fundraiser

People are urged to hand in old cellphones to a Starship mobile phone collection box. Photo / Thinkstock

People are being urged to hand their old or wonky cellphones in to help raise funds for a children's hospital.

Auckland Council said throughout June and July Starship mobile phone collection boxes will be at the council's main service centres "for people who want to help kids and the planet" by recycling old phones.

Money raised will go to the Starship National Air Ambulance Service.

Once collected, the phones would be passed to a specialist recycling company, Swapkit, who graded the phones and wiped the data. Sim and memory cards were also removed and destroyed.

Phones still useful were sold to offshore businesses that refurbished and sold second-hand cellphones.

"Those that have reached their end of life are broken down and recycled in an environmentally friendly way. All proceeds from the re-sale of mobile devices go to the Starship Foundation," the Council said today.

All mobile phones would be accepted, even those that no longer worked or were very old.

Auckland Council said it was joining an already successful campaign that had raised over $2.3m for Starship Foundation and the Starship National Air Ambulance.