Graham Watson, the South West and Gibraltar Lib Dem MEP recently met Peter Simon, the Fundraising Manager for the British Institute for Brain Injured Children (BIBIC) based in Bridgwater, Somerset to discuss their latest fundraising re-cycling schemes.

BIBIC is a national charity helping children with conditions such as autism, cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, traumatic brain injury and other neurological impairments such as dyslexia and dyspraxia. Their aim is to work with children and their families to develop their communication, mobility and learning abilities and thus attain their full potential.

However, to do this they need financial support; they receive no Government funding and therefore have to rely on their own fundraising efforts. BIBIC’s re-cycling schemes bring in a regular income which allows them to directly help children by supplying bursaries to those families on a low income. As no child is ever turned away for financial reasons, without this income BIBIC would not be able to offer the specialist help that so many children need.

BIBIC have for some time been re-cycling printer and toner cartridges, but they have recently added mobile phone re-cycling to the stable. All useable mobiles are sent to developing countries and the others are completely stripped down to recover useable parts and materials, like gold and palladium.

Mr Watson said today:

"I would urge everybody to hunt around at home until they find an old mobile phone, and then send it to BIBIC, a worthwhile charity whose work I am very pleased to promote. At present less than 5% of old mobile phones are re-cycled, most sit discarded at the back of drawers and even worse some find their way into landfill. BIBIC are able to turn your old phone into funds for their work, each re-cycled mobile means another £3.50 to them."

"This scheme is able to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ as the saying goes. Not only is this a great cause, helping disadvantaged children get the support they need, but it’s also very environmentally friendly. By re-cycling your old phone rather than chucking it in the bin and it going into landfill you have stopped potentially dangerous substances such as lead, cadmium, lithium and mercury polluting the environment. So this has got to be no-lose situation, as it costs you nothing to help, even the envelopes have a Freepost address!"

Anybody who is interested in finding out more about BIBIC’s work, or who has a printer or toner cartridge or a mobile phone they would like to donate, either contact Peter Simon at fundraising@bibic.org.uk or visit their website at www.bibic.org.uk.