Orange introduces new mini SIM Cards to reduce the waste by half

The moment we step on a foreign soil, we buy a new SIM card for our cell phones. And Orange has announced it green plans to cut down on the amount of waste generated with this habit. Though it sounds very trivial issue, the trend of receiving new SIMs for an upgrade or new contract does leave its share of carbon footprints on our planet too. Orange has become the first European mobile operator to introduce mini SIM cards to support our environment. How will it help? Till now the new SIMs come embedded in a credit-card sized plastic wrapping. However, only ten percent of the material is used for the plug-in SIM. The rest of the 90% of the card’s plastic is waste. But the new mini SIM cards will halve the amount of waste generated in providing customers with new SIMs by embedding two SIMs in each credit-card sized item during manufacturing.

And since it is estimated that more than 2.9 billion SIM cards weighing 11,600 tonnes were shipped to mobile operators across the globe in 2008, it is very easy to calculate the waste that is generated along with it.
The trial of the mini SIM cards has commenced with select pay-monthly customers and in future will be extended to cover all new SIMs. SIM card providers, Gemalto, Sagem Orga and Oberthur Technologies, are supplying Orange with the mini SIM cards.
Press Release