One day when you have finished with your mobile phone you will be able to bury it in the garden and wait for it to burst into flower.

A biodegradable mobile phone has been developed by researchers hoping to encourage consumers to recycle.

The phone casing contains a sunflower seed which germinates when the handset is buried in compost.

Materials experts based at the University of Warwick have created a casing which starts to disintegrate within weeks of being composted and is fitted with a seed which throws up a flower some time later.

Engineers based at the Warwick Manufacturing Group designed a small transparent window in the phone cover to hold the seed and worked with horticultural experts to identify the best performing flowers. Prototypes have been fitted with dwarf sunflowers.

Dr Kerry Kirwan, who led the team, said that mobile telephones were quickly discarded by consumers because of rapid changes in technology and that manufacturers were under pressure to find ways of recycling them.

He said: "There are over 100 million mobile phones thrown away across Europe and we have looked at the plastic covers and facias and looked at ways we can minimise the environmental impact.

"One of the ways was to get the consumer to plant the phone case into the ground or plant pot and grow themselves a flower.

"The seed is released and germinates in the pot so you don’t have to collect, segregate and dispose of the phones which has huge amounts of cost and energy associated with it."

The product was developed in conjunction with PVAXX Research & Development Ltd, a hi-tech materials company, and Motorola, a communications technology firm.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• An officer and a gentle woman
• Dame Helen Mirren is worthy of the Epidaurus
• Foods that can help to prevent swine flu