Harmony Festival Goes Green With Verizon Wireless In Santa Rosa, California

WALNUT CREEK, CA — Verizon Wireless invites environmentally-conscious people attending the Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa on June 12-14, 2009 to go ‘green’ and help support victims of domestic abuse. Festival-goers can donate their used wireless phones, batteries and accessories to the Verizon Wireless HopeLine phone recycling program at the Sonoma County Fairground this weekend. HopeLine collection boxes will be located with the Verizon Wireless street team near the EcoCup entrance.

The HopeLine program collects no-longer-used wireless phones and equipment in any condition from any service provider. The used phones are either refurbished or recycled. With the funds raised from the sale of the refurbished phones, Verizon Wireless donates wireless phones and airtime to survivors, and provides funding and other contributions to non-profit domestic violence shelters and prevention programs across the country.

“We’re happy to partner with the Harmony Festival to make cell phone recycling easy for festival-goers,” said Kevin Zavaglia, regional president for Verizon Wireless. “Together, we are making a difference by raising awareness of domestic violence while protecting the environment.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), recycling 1 million phones would save enough energy to power 185 U.S. households with electricity for one year, so every phone donated can make a difference.

Through HopeLine's recycling efforts, more than 200 tons of electronics waste and batteries have been kept out of landfills. Since October of 2001 when Verizon Wireless launched its national recycling program:

• More than 1 million phones have been properly disposed of in an environmentally sound way through the HopeLine program.
• More than 170,000 pounds of batteries were recycled through the HopeLine and Call2Recycle™ programs.
• Verizon Wireless has also donated more than 76,000 HopeLine phones with 228 million minutes of airtime to victims, survivors and domestic violence organizations.

The HopeLine program also includes #HOPE, which can be dialed from any Verizon Wireless handset to immediately connect to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. The hotline provides professional support and referrals to people involved in domestic violence, as well as those who want to help friends and family. The call to #HOPE is toll- and airtime-free.

How you can help
No-longer-used wireless phones, batteries and accessories in any condition from any wireless service provider are accepted in Verizon Wireless’ more than 2,500 Communications Stores nationwide. For more information on Verizon Wireless’ HopeLine program and to learn how to donate a wireless phone, visit www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline.

About HopeLine
HopeLine accepts wireless phones and accessories in any condition from any manufacturer for reuse and recycling. All phones donated to HopeLine that can be refurbished are sold for reuse and those that are not salvageable are recycled in an environmentally sound way under a zero landfill policy.

Proceeds from HopeLine are used to provide wireless phones to survivors of domestic violence who are rebuilding their lives or cash grants to local shelters and non-profit organizations that focus on domestic violence prevention and awareness.

For additional information about HopeLine, visit www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline.

About Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless operates the nation’s most reliable and largest wireless voice and data network, serving more than 86.6 million customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with more than 86,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone (NYSE and LSE: VOD). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.

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