Mobile phones are one of the fastest and best selling consumer electronic products in the world. A product that hot means that new technology replaces old mobile phones regularly.
Let us look at the impact of the mobile phones when they are not disposed of properly, and let us look at ways to reduce the e-waste amount from mobile phones.
More than 800 million people around the globe use mobile phones today. This figure increases every year since our world is moving so fast, and as soon as we are able to purchase the latest version, the next version is already either being planned, or it is actually already scheduled to come out in the near future. This rapid “consumption” of mobile phones is one of the most pressing problems since millions upon millions of dollars are wasted on the disposal of these old phones that could either have been reused or recycled for other purposes.
Here are some figures to show you how dire the situation is. Did you know that mobile phones containing more than 60 million dollars worth in precious metals are discarded every year? If you don’t know what this figure means, then just imagine that if we recycle a million mobile phones, we can be able to retrieve around 35,000 pounds of copper, 800 pounds of silver, and 80 pounds of gold? Now here is the more shocking part… more than one BILLION mobile phones are put into production in just one year today, and this figure has been steadily growing year on year, and there is no indication of it stopping in the future.
Since all of these new models of mobile phones keep ending up on our shopping lists, what happens to the old ones we bought a few months ago? Chances are that we still keep them in our cabinets or drawers for “future use” or for us to have a spare, but these things just accumulate and they will eventually end up in your trash bin. Mobile phones are also classified as e-waste, so they contain a lot of things that, when incinerated or tossed into a landfill, would cause great harm to our environment.
Chances are, the old phone you have is still working, or just needs a little repair. Since there are around 7 billion people in the world, some of them would definitely benefit from your old phone. Donating your phone to someone would be the best way to reduce the amount of mobile phone “waste” that we produce. If all else, just sell it at a recycling shop for parts and help out in cleaning our environment because these phones have special parts that need special treatment to cause minimal damage to our environment. Everyone should be responsible for his or her own waste, so let’s do our part for our world and our future.
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