Get'em Shiny New Phones

Get'em Shiny New Phones

As a 90's kids, in the short period of 20 years that was my life, I very much witnessed the evolution of mobile phones from big, chunky plastic boxes to the smart, delicate piece of techinology that we are using today. The mobile phones we are using are getting much smarter, faster and cheaper. At the same time, the life duration of our hand-held companions is getting significantly shorter as we can not resist the sight of a shiny new model of iphone that can photography our faces 5% clearer.

As technologies advances, instead of getting more durable phones, we simply replace our phone faster then we ever before. Did you know? The average smartphone life span is 18 month in western world. And only 3% of total moblie phone users actually recycle their phone, out of the 3 billion phone owners around the world. As a result, only 1% of the mobile phones that were replaced every year are recycled.

The materials we used to make smartphones are rare and valuable, including heavy metal materials such as gold, silver, lead, mercury, copper and so on. Some of them can cause serious soil and water pollution if released into the environment irresponsibily. But, because the sheer value of the materials these phones contain, recycling them can be a very profitable business.


We can not rely on goodwill alone to drive people into recycling mobile phones. But financial gain can do exactly that. A electronics recycling business can take off with some supports in forms of policies from the government. Next time when I want to ditch my old phone, I might know exactly where I want to go.

Reference:
http://www.thesecretlifeofthings.com/#!phone-facts/c611
Image Credit:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/03/21/19/326F6EC400000578-3502440-The_rose_gold_iPhone_SE_is_pictured_in_the_foreground_at_the_eve-a-103_1458589317096.jpg