Circularity

Reducing waste and advancing recovery, recycling and reuse to minimize cost and conserve resources.

Click through to learn about our 2025 impact in action. For detailed circularity data, please see our 2025 data table.

Our Approach

Our Approach

We strive to advance circularity to maximize the life and value of our assets and reduce electronic and operational waste. Our circularity approach focuses on areas where we have influence as well as those where we have direct control and is intended to guide us toward a lifecycle approach for mobility devices, broadband and network equipment recovery that will help drive our circularity efforts moving forward.

Circularity at AT&T Framework

• Design & Production
• Sale/Purchase
• Forward Logistics
• Use
• Reverse Logistics
• Recovery

Beyond devices and network equipment, we manage operational waste with a goal to reduce U.S. waste to landfill by 30% from 2019 through the end of 2030.

Design & Production

Resource and Materials Inputs

At AT&T, we encourage a circular approach to resource and material use in our supply chain and require our suppliers to conduct business with an abiding respect for corporate citizenship, sustainability and human rights. In addition, in our supplier contracts we encourage our larger suppliers to implement and maintain quantifiable, time-bound emissions reduction strategies, in line with industry best practices and international standards. This includes exploring and adopting innovative technologies and practices to reduce emissions across their operations and product/service life cycles. Additionally, through the EcoVadis platform, we are reviewing participating supplier performance across environment, labor and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement. We expect this to help us more accurately calculate our footprint and strategize reduction efforts.

Learn more about how we’re using EcoVadis in our Responsible Supply Chain issue brief.

Devices and Equipment

Most of our products are manufactured by suppliers, and we encourage them to design devices that consider end-of-life impacts. We share our sustainability expectations through our Principles of Conduct for Suppliers. Our sustainability contract clause includes criteria that emphasize the importance of adopting circular materials in product design, encouraging suppliers to pursue practices like circular materials use, artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that can reduce waste and green energy procurement.

We expect device manufacturers to adhere to industry standard energy efficiency practices, analyzing life cycle performance to estimate energy impacts and inform enhanced energy management features.

Forward Logistics

Packaging

We encourage packaging suppliers to embed circularity considerations into product packaging they create for us. We have achieved 100% recyclability of consumer device packaging and aim to use 100% recycled materials when shipping orders directly to customers. While most of our packaging is produced by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), all AT&T-produced packaging for phones sent to customers for insurance claims clearly highlights how to recycle the packaging at its end of life.

Sale/Purchase and Use

We strive to maximize the product use phase by offering device upgrades, insurance and trade-up programs for mobility devices.

• AT&T Eco-Rating System: We share information with consumers on the social and environmental impact of the phone and tablet devices we sell. Through the AT&T Eco-Rating system, OEMs¹ can assess and share product performance against 20 criteria across five attributes:
  • Substances of concern
  • Environmentally preferred materials
  • Energy efficiency and charging
  • End-of-life recycling
  • Environmentally and socially responsible policies and disclosures

Reverse Logistics and Recovery

Devices

• Collection: Customers can return their old devices when upgrading. They can also return devices for recycling, refurbishment or resale with our trade-in program through which they can access rewards to apply toward their bill, a new device or accessories. If devices have no trade-in value, customers can mail them to us for recycling. Customers’ broadband internet devices can also be refurbished or recycled by booking an appointment with an AT&T technician to remove old equipment or by mailing us the equipment. When collecting devices, we help protect customers’ privacy by removing customer-saved data and providing detailed information about wiping data from their returned devices.
• Recovery: We refurbish and resell recovered devices whenever possible, including selling certified pre-owned phones through a program that rolled out in 2025. When devices can’t be used in their entirety, we work with vendors to recycle them responsibly. We require that our U.S. device recycling vendors maintain R2 certification, confirming adherence to responsible electronics recycling standards including the Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive and the Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive.

Network Equipment

• Collection: When our network assets need to be replaced, we recover as much material from them as is practicable. We have a team dedicated to responsibly handling equipment, scrap and surplus material generated through our wireline operations.
• Recovery: Our Wireline Transformation and Asset Recovery team works with R2-certified vendors. We process scrap materials like copper and fiber-optic telecommunications wire, dismantling, sorting and baling materials by commodity for resale or recycling. When asset waste can’t be recovered for reuse or recycling, we incinerate it for energy recovery.

Copper

As we transition from copper-based networks to faster, more efficient fiber and wireless services, we have teams managing the removal, recycling and responsible disposal of equipment and materials generated from our wireline operations. We aim to recycle 100% of the copper aerial lines removed from poles.

Batteries

We use lead-acid batteries in some operations, primarily for network facility back-up power systems, to deliver reliable, resilient service. When batteries reach the end of useful life, we recycle them. Recognizing concerns regarding the export of lead-acid batteries from the U.S. to locations where lower standards can significantly impact environmental safety and public health, we contractually require recycling within the U.S.²

Addressing Operational Waste

We are working to minimize the waste and material impacts across our operations by:

• Offering reuse and recycling programs. In many locations, we provide recycling and composting bins. We offer waste management training through AT&T's Personal Learning Experience library, our comprehensive collection of online courses that is available to all employees. We also provide state-specific waste training to help meet applicable state requirements. We also provide specific training in our California offices to meet state waste regulations.
• Recycling internal electronic device waste through R2-certified vendors that adhere to responsible electronics recycling standards.
• Donating surplus packaged food items from our Dallas headquarters to a local food bank.

Hazardous Waste

We manage hazardous waste in compliance with environment, health and safety laws and regulations. AT&T’s primary hazardous waste includes:

• Compressed gas cylinders
• Aerosol cans
• Acidic waste
• Batteries

For hazardous waste, we prioritize recycling. This includes dedicated recycling programs for batteries and aerosol cans. When reduction, recycling or reuse isn’t feasible, we use third-party vendors to treat, incinerate or dispose of hazardous waste as appropriate.

Circularity Governance

AT&T’s circularity and waste management efforts are governed through a coordinated, cross‑functional approach. Senior leadership provides strategic oversight, supported by periodic reviews that assess progress and identify opportunities to improve the life‑cycle management of products and materials. Operational teams across supply chain, facilities and environmental functions collaborate with external partners to support reuse, recycling and responsible end‑of‑life practices while maintaining compliance with applicable environmental and safety requirements.

Stakeholder Engagement

To support our circularity efforts, we work with like-minded peers through industry organizations such as:

• Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA): AT&T collaborated with CTIA working groups to create the Guidelines for Wireless Device and Accessory Packaging and the refined industry standard for used wireless device grading.
• Global enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI): AT&T is a member of GeSI’s Circular Economy Working Group.
• Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA): AT&T participates in GSMA’s Climate Action Taskforce on device circularity, focused on consumer device equipment recycling.
• Joint Alliance for CSR (JAC): AT&T sits on the JAC board of directors, reinforcing our commitment to supply chain sustainability.
• Small Network Equipment Voluntary Agreement: AT&T participates in the agreement to help collectively reduce the energy demands of in-home internet equipment. Under the agreement, the average weighted power of each category of new small network equipment relative to broadband speed delivered has decreased annually since 2015, achieving an 89% overall reduction in 2024.

Impact In Action

Our 2025 Impact in Action

Engaging Our Customers in Circularity

We continue to pilot new ways to engage our customers in circularity efforts, such as consumer device recovery initiatives. In 2025, we recovered nearly 14 million customer devices, including more than 11.4 million mobility devices and nearly 3.5 million broadband devices. This included more than 7.6 million devices returned through our trade-in program. As well as giving valuable materials a second life, through the refurbishment and recycling process we avoided an estimated 907,000 metric tons of CO₂e compared to if those devices were new.

In 2025, we launched our national retail e-waste campaign, engaging consumers in our circularity and digital divide efforts by expanding in-store collection bins for consumers to drop off old unused devices to 103 retail stores after a successful pilot in 2024. Working with Recycle Global Exchange, the program enables customers to recycle old phones, tablets and laptops even if the devices have no trade-in value. We plan to expand the program to at least another 100 retail locations in 2026.

Through our e-waste campaign, we reduced waste and emissions associated with sending old technology to landfill and delivered a successful consumer engagement campaign with Compudopt to connect our e-waste and digital divide efforts. To celebrate Earth Month 2025, for every 10 pounds of e-waste returned to stores by customers, we distributed a refurbished laptop to communities affected by the digital divide. In total, more than 39,000 refurbished laptops were distributed. Learn more about how we’re bridging the digital divide in our Digital Divide issue brief and how the e-waste campaign supported disaster relief efforts in our Community Engagement & Investment issue brief.

Recovering Network Equipment Materials

In 2025, our Wireline Operations Asset Recovery team diverted 98% of operational waste from landfill.⁴

In total, our Asset Recovery team handled 78,800 tons of domestic U.S. operational waste and kept 77,267 tons out of landfills.⁴

Evolving Toward Lower-Waste Operations

After becoming the first company in Texas to use a new, AI-enabled smart trash-sorting system in 2023, we now have four AI-enabled bins across our Dallas campus. The bins track data on recycling, composting and waste to landfill in high-volume areas such as our cafeteria, helping us identify opportunities for reduction. We will continue to offer training on managing waste.

Since 2023, we have donated more than 3,000 pounds of surplus packaged-food items from our Dallas campus.

We optimized our waste process to determine actual waste levels before separating, which helped reduce service needs and costs.

Throughout 2025, our diversion rates with haulers for operational waste (including materials returned by customers to AT&T facilities or vendors) decreased.⁵ We recycled an estimated 18,401 tons of materials, resulting in an overall estimated solid waste diversion rate of 14%.

2025 Data

Circularity Data

Product Life Cycle

Waste Management⁵⁷

Related Key Topics

Efficiency & Emissions

• Lowering Emissions
• Building Resilience
• Seizing Business Opportunities

Energy Management

• Renewable Energy
• Energy Efficient Projects
• Energy Management Platform

Environment, Health & Safety Compliance

• EHS Framework
• Governance
• Employee Awareness

Natural Resources

• Biodiversity
• Water Management
• Paper Procurement

Responsible Supply Chain

• Supply Chain Resilience
• Supplier Sustainability
• Supplier Inclusivity

View All Key Topics