Pity that old cell phone languishing in a drawer. It’s missing out on a fascinating afterlife.

Most discarded phones in the U.S. are simply forgotten amid household clutter. A smaller number of handsets make it to a collection center for recycling or a reselling facility. For those phones, their fates can vary from being sold to consumers in developing countries to being melted down for metals like gold and copper.

But getting more consumers to think about their old phones the way they look at an empty soft-drink can, as a product to be recycled, isn’t so easy.

According to industry estimates, nearly 200 million cell phones will be sold in the U.S. this year. A large number of these buyers are already wireless subscribers with handsets, so more than 100 million phones will be retired. If improperly dumped in a landfill, they can release toxic materials from their batteries, small fluorescent lights and other parts.

These handsets also represent a lost opportunity, because discarded phones often are still functional, and parts of nonworking ones are reusable. Persuading consumers to recycle their phones at local sites or with local charities is part of a larger “e-waste” problem that environmental activists, governments and companies are trying to address as they grapple with a tide of unwanted consumer electronics.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates the U.S. cell phone recycling rate at 10 percent, a figure that’s been flat for the last couple of years. In contrast, 2006 data show that American households recycled 51.6 percent of their paper and 45.1 percent of their aluminum cans.

Despite industry-sponsored collection programs, “most consumers still do not know where or how they can recycle their cell phone,” said EPA spokeswoman Latisha Petteway.

In the U.S., consumers tend to replace their handsets every 18 months or two years, partly because the industry offers upgrade incentives and also because cell phones have become fashion accessories that can quickly lose their cachet.

ReCellular Inc., a Michigan-based reseller and recycler of mobile phones, expects to process more than 6 million handsets this year, said Vice President Mike Newman. That’s double the 2007 amount, “but it’s nowhere near where it could be.”

ReCellular sends just under half of the handsets it receives to be recycled for materials. The others are resold in their current condition or passed on to refurbishing companies.

Discarded U.S. phones are often sold in overseas markets where consumers might not be able to afford a new handset. Colorado-based CollectiveGood auctions about 55 percent of the 8,000 to 10,000 phones it receives every month to refurbishers and resellers, some of which sell the used handsets abroad.