Update.

Recently, I contacted the Sapporo Maruyama Zoo on the occasion of proposing a phone collection box to be set up at the zoo.

The 24th of September was the World Gorilla Day; this provided me with an excellent opportunity to ask whether my local zoo would be willing to set up a phone donation scheme in order to collect "sleeping phones" and reduce the habitat destruction of gorillas due to the mining of rare earth metals.

Currently, only four zoos in the entirety of Japan use phone collection boxes to allow visitors to donate their devices, after donators individually deleting their personal information. Since phone collection boxes can, upon request and approval, be set up in specific locations, my local zoo could have contributed to the reduction in Japan's sleeping phone epidemic.

However, privacy concerns once again became the deciding factor; ultimately, the task was deemed infeasible. I am thankful for the thoughtful and considerate response of the zoo's staff to my inquiry.

Once again, I have found that the uncertainty of the security of personal information -- stemming from phone recycling companies' lack of transparency around their data destruciton and recycling processes -- was fatal to the spread of awareness about the issue of e-waste.