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Steve Moss
is the founder and Managing Director of Aussie Recycling Program.
Steve was raised in Australia by Russian immigrants who arrived
with a dream of making a new life in a free and open society.
Steve learnt from an early age the importance and blessings of
being an active part of the community.
Earning a degree in International Trade, Steve embarked on a
career in trading of various products. Following forays into commodities
markets, he carved a niche for himself in the area of trading
in new and used electronic equipment – particularly computers
and mobile telephones and accessories.
Having created a successful Australian-based business and established
good contacts with many suppliers and buyers in Asia and Eastern
European countries, Steve began searching for an opportunity to
put more back into his community. While considering how he could
make a difference, Steve came across the concept of the Triple
Bottom Line. The Triple Bottom Line approach requires that business
contribute to the social, environmental and financial bottom line
(click here).
Through increasing familiarity with the potential
for major environmental damage from mobile phone waste (click
here),
Steve set about channeling his energies into creating a program
that would substantially reduce, or wipe-out entirely, the stockpile
of wasted mobile phones.
It was about that time that Australia's first mobile phone recycling
program was instituted by the Australian Mobile Telephone Association,
an industry organisation made up almost entirely of mobile phone
manufacturers and service carriers.
Steve identified that reuse of unused mobile phones represented
a superior environmental outcome and one that could be married
with a positive outcome for charities. Furthermore Steve realized
that working phones have an economically productive life in markets
with less capacity to buy new mobile phones.
He then researched other countries with highly developed economies
and discovered other people shared his view and have managed to
successfully establish programs that not only re-use redundant
mobile phones but generate funds for charities at the same time.
It was the inspiration of these programs benefiting the wider
community that lead to Steve founding the Aussie Recycling Program
in 2003. |