Information gained from Nokia, the popular mobile phone manufacturer based in Finland have hinted that only under one per cent of discarded mobile phones are recycled in China. This was reported by the Beijing Morning Post.

Nokia China's environmental affairs senior manager, Chen Min said that the global results carried out by the mobile phone maker has revealed the discarded mobile phones containing harmful substances including nickel cobalt that gravely pollute both soil and water.

The approximate 400 million discarded mobile phones world wide every year, boast a total gold content that is par 1.5 million gold rings, according to a Nokia report.

The president of D.Phone, the largest mobile phone retail chain of China, Jin Xin said that a survey carried out by D.Phone indicated that the consumers in China changed their mobile phones often, on an average of 15 months' use.

The fact that the Green Box project of Nokia sparked off in China in 2005 for collecting discarded mobile phones was also cited by the report. Under this project at over 700 service centre of Nokia, collections boxes were engaged.