U.S. Cell Phone Recycling Market Size & Share Analysis - Emerging Trends, Growth Opportunities, Competitive Landscape, and Forecasts (2025 - 2032)

U.S. Cell Phone Recycling Market Trends & Drivers

Take Backs and Recycling Programs by Companies Are Major Trends

• Take-backs and recycling programs are run by firms such as Apple and Samsung for consumers to return their old devices and buy the latest ones at lower prices.
• Trade-in discounts, gift cards, and credits, redeemable on new purchases, encourage more people to have their old products recycled, thus building A circular economy.
• Consumers respond to such incentives and rewards, which encourages more companies to take up recycling.
• Apple and Samsung even collect discarded phones at convenient locations, as well as providing the facility to customers to directly ship such products back to them.
• Moreover, advanced technologies, for instance Apple’s Daisy robot, enhance the efficiency of dismantling items and extraction of beneficial materials, thus boosting recycling capacity.

Growing Awareness among Consumers Propels Market

• The rising awareness of consumers of the negative impacts of mismanaged e-waste and their adoption of the right means of disposal drive the growth of this market.
• As per the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, of the 14.1 kg of e-waste generated per capita in North America in 2024, merely 4.2 kg was collected and recycled.
• Consumers now also know more about drop-off locations, scheduled pick-ups for e-waste, municipal e-waste collection events, and other means that make it easier for them to manage the e-waste.
• Moreover, up to 25% of the country’s e-waste is exported to Africa and Asia, where it is dismantled and reprocessed in life-threatening environments, often by hand.
• The Environmental Protection Agency coordinates the International E-Waste Management Network (IEMN) and supports the federal government’s National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship, both aimed at managing e-waste.
• The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has allocated USD 550 billion to improve recycling activities.
• As of mid-2024, funding of more than USD 454 billion has been allocated under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to recycling programs.

U.S. Cell Phone Recycling Market Segmentation and Category Analysis

Service Type Insights

The material recovery category dominates the market, with 45% share in 2024. This process involves collecting valuable materials from discarded cell phones, such as gold, silver, platinum, and other rare elements. Their sale generates significant revenue for recyclers as these metals witness high demand in new cell phone manufacturing and many other applications.

Recycling and disposal are the fastest-growing category. The growing customer consciousness of the harms of e-waste and the evolving legal mandates, which aim to advance the technologies involved in e-waste recycling and discarding, drive the market. This category is growing rapidly primarily because more people and businesses are now willing to dispose of their waste responsibly.

Service types covered in this report:

• Collection and Sorting
• Dismantling and Shredding
• Material Recovery (Largest Category)
• Recycling and Disposal (Fastest-Growing Category)

Application Insights

Metal extraction is the largest category since valuable metals, such as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, are the easiest to extract from cell phones. These metals have a good market value and act as the key revenue source for most recycling companies.

Battery recycling is the fastest-growing category in this market, with 7% CAGR. This is due to the rising awareness of and efforts for the recycling of lithium-ion batteries, which are common in contemporary smartphones. This category is mainly growing due to the increase in the stringency of regulations for lithium and other battery metals’ recycling and their growing demand for use in electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

Applications studied during analysis:

• Metal Extraction (Largest Category)
• Plastic Recycling
• Glass Recycling
• Battery Recycling (Fastest-Growing Category)

Technology Insights

Mechanical recycling is the largest category, holding a share of 55% in 2024. This is because the processes involved, such as shredding, physical sorting, and separation by magnet, are traditional and effective in the extraction of valuable materials from cell phones. This process is cheap, fast, and already in use at a large scale in junkyards, leading to an appreciable understanding among recyclers and waste managers.

Biotechnological recycling is the fastest-growing category because of the rising shift to environment-friendly processes of metal recovery, including the use of microbes, with the push for sustainability around the country. Moreover, the ability of microbes to work in ambient temperatures drives down operational expenses.

Technologies studied:

• Mechanical (Largest Category)
• Hydrometallurgical
• Pyrometallurgical
• Biotechnological (Fastest-Growing Category)

End User Insights

E-waste management companies are dominant since they are involved in the collection, recycling, and disposal of all forms of end-user waste, including business, consumer, and producer waste. The collection and transportation of e-waste are volume-intensive businesses. Encouraged by government mandates and initiatives, a large number of such companies have come up in the country, and many more continue to emerge.

Government and municipalities are the fastest-growing category, with an expected CAGR of 8%. With the increasing stringency of environmental regulations and the implementation of recycling mandates across local, state, and federal levels, government bodies and municipalities are seeing lucrative opportunities in the e-waste management business. In many places where dedicated recycling companies do not operate, government bodies and municipalities take up the task of waste collection and reprocessing.

End users included:

• Consumer Electronics Manufacturers
• Recycling Facilities
• E-Waste Management Companies (Largest Category)
• Government and Municipalities (Fastest-Growing Category)
• Others

U.S. Cell Phone Recycling Market Geographical Analysis

In 2024, South is the largest region in the U.S. This is primarily a result of the large population, which leads to high cell phone sales and, in turn, massive waste generation.

The West is the fastest-growing region, with 10% CAGR, largely owing to the presence of the technology belt—Silicon Valley. Its tech-savvy consumer base leads to the quick obsoletion of mobile phones, which leads to high volumes of waste. Additionally, with the increasing adoption of advanced and automated recycling technologies, waste processing volumes are set to grow rapidly here in the coming years.

Regions covered:

• Northeast
• Midwest
• West (Fastest-Growing Region)
• South (Largest Region)

U.S. Cell Phone Recycling Market Competitive Landscape

• The competitive landscape of the industry is fragmented, with a few key players, including Waste Management Holdings, Electronic Recyclers International Inc., and The Sims Group, offering comprehensive e-waste sorting and recycling solutions.
• Moreover, companies such as Umicore and Veolia Environnement operate in a more-specialized manner, concentrating on material recovery and processing.
• More significantly, several tiny players, such as Eco-Cycle Solutions, e-Waste LLC, and Great Lakes Electronics Corporation, operate in local markets or offer specialized circuit recycling services.

U.S. Cell Phone Recycling Market News & Updates

• In July 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy declared a grant of USD 14 million for improving battery recycling in the country.
• In August 2023, Electronic Recyclers International Inc. organized free e-waste collection events in Baraboo and Westfield in Wisconsin.