I was reading an article in the Kansas City Star written on Tuesday. In it, the writer talks about a recent lunch she’d had with a friend. The friend had a BlackBerry which rang all through their lunch, which she kept answering. Finally, the writer asks her friend why she didn’t just put the phone away and enjoy the here and now. The friend replied, “It’s a company phone. I have to answer it.”

Recycling cell phone batteries is the new gimmick at Recyclemania, a waste reduction competition held between universities all across the United States. The competing universities routinely watch and count the number of cans, cardboard and bottles that are offered up for recycling during the competition, and this year, old cellular phone batteries are now also being allowed and counted.

Cell phone users in the European Union will soon have just the one standard charger for the majority of their cell phones. The largest digital technology company in Europe, DigitalEurope, has sent to Antonio Tajani, the vice president of the European Commission, a sample version of a universal mobile phone charger that should be able to work on just about any and all new cell phones.

A new cell phone company in the United Kingdom is set to unveil a brand new cell phone with tight Facebook integration built in. United Kingdom start up company INQ Mobile will be releasing the phone, which apparently goes under the name of the INQ Cloud Touch and which uses the Android operating system, with no less than four buttons relating to Facebook users on the phone’s home screen. The four buttons will include at least one to integrate your Facebook friends with your contacts, as well as a real time Facebook activity news feed, which will be a particularly prominent feature.

I recall the very first time I heard about a cell phone recycling program. I was headed into a Verizon shop and right at the side of the door was a big barrel for used cell phones. The purpose was to collect unwanted phones which would then be refurbished and given to women who were taking part in a ‘back to work’ program designed to help them get off of welfare and back in charge of their own lives.

A cell phone recycling scheme intended to help victims of domestic abuse has paid off big time, with the Women Called Moses Coalition and Outreach Inc and Genesis Women’s Shelter being given a donation of no less than fifteen thousand dollars from Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless, who initiated the cell phone recycling scheme under the name of HopeLine presented the check to the community groups on the fourth of February at the 2011 Super Bowl Gospel Celebration (SBGC) in Dallas.

Call2Recycle, the biggest free recycling collection program for batteries and old cell phones in the whole of North America, is set to expand its operations thanks to a team up with Earth911. Earth911 is offering a service called the Earth 911 Recycling Directory. The service, which kicked off late last year, enables sponsors to have their own sections on appropriate web pages throughout Earth911’s own web site, as well as giving them the ability to directly communicate with the site’s readers through their own news stories. Call2Recycle is set to sponsor the Earth 911 Rechargeable Batteries section in return for those abilities.

A Senator in the state of Utah is trying to have legislation passed that would make it illegal for teenage drivers to talk on their cell phones at the same time as they are operating a motor vehicle. Senator Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake City, is trying to have the bill, which would not affect a teenage driver’s license points but would instead see them slapped with an instant fifty dollar fine, passed through the Senate.

Talia Moore is a woman on a mission. The Binghamton community activist and writer has come up with a way to use old cell phones to help victims of abuse in her neighborhood by recycling used cell phones and using the proceeds to help to renovate five “safe houses” in the local area that are used to shelter those victims.

The YMCA will be making it fun to recycle cell phones at this year’s Annual Giving Campaign. The campaign, which kicks off tomorrow at Tesla Motors in Menlo Park, Palo Alto, will see over a hundred volunteers attempting to raise as much as two hundred thousand US dollars. Last year ninety eight volunteers were able to help the organization raise two hundred thousand, seven hundred and eighty eight dollars over the course of the event.