Helen Sharp BBC Science in Geneva

The agreement was struck at a conference organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) to work out how to tackle the growing mountain of electronic waste, so called e-waste.

It is part of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention, a Unep initiative that was adopted in 1989 to control the management and transport around the world of hazardous waste.

The focus at this conference, held in Geneva last week, was on managing electronic and electrical waste, in an environmentally sound way.

Millions of phones

Computers, printers, mobiles and other electronic goods are often discarded when they become out of date.

Recycling these products can be quite a lucrative business. Gold, copper and other precious metals can be recovered from every technical piece of equipment.

We have to address the different levels of problems in different countries, particularly in developing countries Sachiko Kuwabara-Yamamoto, Executive Secretary of the Basel Convention

The problem is that these items are made of highly sophisticated blends of metals and plastics.

Recovering the precious metals can be hazardous as other metals used such as lead, cadmium and mercury are toxic.

Mobile phones make up between 1% and 2% of electronic waste. Recycling systems for mobiles have been running since 1997 but people are reluctant to give up their old phones, still believing they are worth something.

Currently there are 380 million mobiles phones in the world. It is not known how many of those are now considered waste.

Manufacturers believe the critical issue is to educate people across the world on how to recycle their mobile phone properly, instead of just keeping hold of it or putting it in the bin.

Easier to recycle

At the moment, one of the main ways of recycling mobiles is to pass them on to other countries.

Sachiko Kuwabara-Yamamoto, the Executive Secretary of the Basel Convention says that although technology is moving on in the more developed countries, there are issues concerning developing countries.

Mobile phones are increasingly popular

"We have to address the different levels of problems in different countries, particularly in developing countries," she said.

"The representative from Bolivia said this is really the problem of the developing countries as 80% of the communication network depends on mobile phones.

"So there is a great deal of interest coming from countries like Bolivia, Pakistan also spoke about how much they would like to support such initiatives," she said.

First step

In signing this agreement, the mobile manufacturers have said they will make phones easier to recycle by thinking about recycling at the time of initial manufacture.

Klaus Tofper, the executive director of the Unep, is sure this small step will put pressure on governments and other electrical industries to do the same.

"I believe this will be at one of the ground-breaking technical regulations," he said.

"It is not the end it is the start. But we can start with much more pressure and much more dedication if we have such a voluntary agreement.

"It's good to start and go step by step in this direction," he said.