Mountain of Discarded Cell Phones Grows at ‘Frightening’ Rate
Snazzy new mobile phones like the iPhone and other must-have electronic gadgets, such as the latest laptops and iPod models, will fill many stockings this Christmas. But disposing of the older devices will not be at the forefront of most people’s minds.
Around 11,000 tons of unused phones already sit dormant in drawers across the UK, and that figure is likely to rise this Christmas as people upgrade to better devices. Factoring in old laptops, games consoles and portable music players, the environmental implications of celebrating Christmas with a new digital toy start to look ominous, as most of the older electronic products will end up in landfill sites, leaking dangerous chemicals into the earth.
While reusing the devices either by passing them on to friends or selling it is the best solution, recycling the gadget is the next best thing. Companies such as the Body Shop and mobile phone operators such as Orange have been offering to recycle handsets for years, but UK consumers are still much more likely to bin their old phone as soon as they have transferred their numbers.
Johan Thomsen, a manager at Green Mobile, argued: “The problem today is that people upgrade their mobile phones every year and only a small percentage of these phones are disposed of safely.” The situation is ” frightening”, he said.
Green Mobile, a small operator that passes on a portion of its profits to environmental charities such as the Woodland Trust and Friends of the Earth, does not woo users with a free, leading edge handset, as is commonplace in the UK. Instead, it asks people to hold on to their existing phones for as long as possible and passes on the savings of not having to subsidise a new handset to the user through lower call charges.
Mr Thomsen said that a handset is designed to last five years, yet 100 million people in Europe upgrade to a new phone every year. The company also offers environmentally friendly wind-up phone chargers for customers who want to reduce their phone’s environmental impact further.
For those mobile phones, laptops and iPods that have seen better days, recycling is the best way to reduce the environmental impact of the product. EU legislation requires that hardware companies that produce electronic products are also responsible for disposing of the device, and a number of companies, including Fonebak, ReCellular and Eazyfone, have built businesses based on recycling phones on behalf of manufacturers. Meanwhile, device makers are designing phones that are easily recyclable and contain less hazardous chemicals.
ABI Research expects that shipments of recycled phones will exceed 100 million units in 2012, driven by shorter handset replacement cycles, growing demand for low-cost mobile phones in emerging markets, regulation and growing consumer demand. By 2012, ABI expects the market for recycled handsets to be worth $3bn (£1.5bn), but the analyst Shailendra Pandey said the key challenge is to revamp the old mobile phones at the lowest possible cost, to ensure a decent margin on the resale.
However, with 1 billion handsets sold around the world every year, and Nokia alone shipping 1 million mobile phones a day, consumers need to take some responsibility for the safe disposal of their old devices, starting this Christmas.
© 2007 The Independent/UK
People who buy cell phones should have some responsibility for disposing them.
1. The phones should have a serial number and registered the same a guns are.
2. When the user is ready to dispose of the phone, the number would then be deleted from the record.
3. If a cell phone is found not to be disposed properly, the user would then be held accountable.
The manufacturer and seller would also have a responsibility for the disposal.
Many are shocked when I tell them I have never had a cell phone. I am considered a Luddite by many, but I am just saying no to the dizzying practice of trying to talk to the people I am actually with while at the same time maintaining conversations with 4-5 others at a frantic pace. That they end up being junk after a few months comes as little surprise.
Rudeness and obesity are becoming the Corporate Sponsored de facto religion.
The photo above looks just like a scene from Idiocracy.
Right on, Fuddgate!
When I didn’t think humans could become anymore self-serving, ignorant, rude, or unconscious to the present moment–ALONG CAME CELLPHONES!
For those who predicted many years ago that the invention of the t.v. would be the end of an intelligent, free-thinking society (Which it has!) along comes the cellular phone to finish the job…AND, according to this report (Of course not from the U.S.) contribute to a planet already choking on man made feces of “things” NOT bio-degradable!
The onus of recycling should not be on the user alone. Manufacturers of these devices should be held responsible too.
I’m looking to recycle used cell phones with cameras. Using the camera not the phone service. They must have a slot for flash cards and include chargers. Using them for school photo project in NYC.
Any leads?
I have to have a cell phone for work, if I want to have any kind of life. I’ve had three in eight years. The first landed face down on pavement and totally died, my bad. The second was working fine after about 4 years until I obeyed a Verizon message to update my software and it would no longer get a signal. When I took it to their store I was told they no longer supported that model, and I would have to get another phone. They gave me a basic phone, but I had to extend my contract for two years. Since I was on-call at the time, I really had no choice. I’ve had this phone now at least two years or so, works fairly well, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to update it over the air again! It’s a racket folks. I’ve had the same TV set for 22 years, car for 12 years, and camera for 27 years. Planned obsolescence is the name of the game, and I’m not playing anymore. Please join me for the sake of the planet!
So users are not bringing their phones in for recycling? Full on supply side capitolism is not going to solve this.
But this is such an EASY problem to solve:-
* Impose a fee/tax/surcharge on new phones.
* Refund the money on return of the used phone.
Electronic devices get the prize for a priori obsolescence. I’ve saved hundreds of dollars NOT owning a cell phone, and I’ve enjoyed many leisure hours conserving electricity in total freedom from video games. When I see people using those devices, I see people enslaved in a manner quite repugnant because such people CHOSE to be enslaved.
“have to have a cell phone for work, if I want to have any kind of life.”
Get another job!
I’ve never had a cell phone. My wife has one, and runs up $200/month bills, even though we somehow did fine before they even were invented. When I need one for work, my employer gives me one.
And this is being typed up on a 10 yr. old 450Mhz machine. It is still working fine. My wife is currently at her mothers at the other end of the state. She got there on our 20 yr old Chevy nova. Me, I finished up some Christmas shopping using the bus
What do I want for Christmas? A high quality 60V 40AH LiFePO4 battery pack, which will double the range of our electric motor scooters at half the battery pack weight. That’s the sort of available “high-tech” stuff that I’ll dig into my savings for. But alas, it is impossible to find, unless I am buying 20,000 of them for a big corporation or defense contractor, or power tool manufacturer.
“The capitalists have taught us to want things we don’t need, and not want the things we need.”
- can’t remember who
I understand the use of a cell phone damages brain cells. I do believe that is a fact, especially when seeing one being used while driving a vehicle.
As for the damage to the enviroment with discarded cell phones,? It certainly is a problem. I do believe we have far more serious problems to contend with in that respect. Therefore, I won’t be surprised to see regulations and laws imposed to safeguard us from tossed electronic gadgets, because that won’t hurt the oil and coal industries.
Of course, we’ll continue to burn coal like a bunch of maniacs, drive over-sized gas hogging vehicles at 75 mph and spread DU all over the planet. Those serious problems won’t be taken care of soon enough but we won’t have to sweat the used cell phones.
Fuddgate-And people tell me that I should get a cell phone. You wouldn’t believe the funny looks I get from people when I say that I don’t have one. Now I have one more reason not to bother.
PJD, I can’t understand how people can even afford them anymore. So many people, including low-income people own and use them. My sister has one, and finally stopped using it.
I don’t ever plan on getting an IPOD either. Everytime something like that comes out, WHAM!!! It’s obsolete. And I love my music.
God, at the very least, they should be recycled or cannibalized. Something useful should be made out of the components.
However, aren’t there programs out there who give old donated cell phones to lower-income people?
Not a very Christmasy thought, perhaps, but I can’t help but wonder whether some hapless driver might fatally plow at top speed into that pictured heap of discarded cellphones– because he/she was talking on their cellphone at the time.
Planned obsolescence– the gift that never stops giving!
Early this morning, while driving through a residential neighborhood, slowly thank God, we almost had an accident.
Here comes a young girl, about the age of ten we guessed, operating a Chinese made, titty pink electric scooter, weaving all over the road. She zipped out of a driveway between two parked vans and just missed crashing into our front end as I slammed on the brakes. She never noticed.
She was happily engaged in a telephone conversation, as she suddenly u-turned and weaved off down the road. It ain’t fair, I don’t have an electic heart stabalizer.
She was wearing a helmet, with her blond pony tail waving away from the rear. Safety first of course. __ And a merry Christmas was had by all.
PJD:
My brother contacted PHET (Pihsiang Energy Technology Co.,Ltd) here in Taiwan after I got a tipoff to their products right here on CD. He and his wife run an NGO doing environmental education, and he and I are designing our next version of an energy bike (just demo stuff, for education) and despite the miniscule business potential, the folks there seemed quite willing (though probably mostly for the PR value) to help us out: they offered to put together a pack to our specifications, even.
You might try putting together a winning proposal for the folks at Batteries Plus, suggesting that they partner with PHET to get in on the ground floor of what might hopefully become a minor revolution in transportation. (Feel free to use my words…talk it up big and really try to sell the idea!) Best of luck!
btw: could this interview be the source of that quote you ended with? http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1958
PDJ,
LiFePO4 batteries are available here ,
but they’re not 60V 40AH. These batteries are suitable for bicycles. Maybe you could upgrade your scooters to bicycles. Bicycles can carry more as easily and still work when the batteries don’t.
Back on topic. I recently had to replace my 6-year-old cell phone because the monitor died. There were two problems with repairing it: 1) not sure they still had the parts and 2) couldn’t get an estimate on cost. The whole business is about replacement not repair.
Sorry, the link didn’t show:
http://tinyurl.com/2s5vwr
This is mainly part of a discussion of battery cost and efficiency.
Unfortunately, here in the UK, we have an epidemic of mobile phone use. I have been to restaurants where people will put not one, but sometimes two or three phones on the table, and either answer them there, or spend most of the meal outside. I agree with Fuddgate, and although I do own a cellphone, I have had it for four years, and it is a “pay as you go” phone - no contract. I do not know how to text, my phone has no camera. We have just spent Christmas day entertaining relations. My phone was switched off, the TV was switched off, but one person decided to spend most of the time texting and receiving/making calls. I totally agree Fuddgate, rudeness and obesity, and furthermore a complete lack of social skills are becoming the norm.
There are plenty of good reasons not to use a cell phone, the electronic waste and pollution is only part of the problem. The social impact is another but there are also health consequence directly related to using one.
There are guidelines for use that will make them less toxic, these from a study in the UK. One thing is that you shouldn’t use them in a car because EMFs are trapped and increase exposure. Also avoid some places like buses or any place exposure is amplified. I don’t use them.
Cell phones are nuisances in so many ways. Not long ago it was in the news that a man in South Korea died after his cell phone exploded. The hazards created by people who drive autos while talking on their cell phones are well known. I particularly despise jerks who use cell phones in library. At the University of Oklahoma, this problem has been rampant for years. The same is true for the Norman public library. Humanity has thrived on this planet for more than 100,000 years without cell phones, but in the past decade millions of sheep, who only do what the junk marketers tell them, have decided they can’t live without a cell phone.
It is so idiotic to see people walking down the street, talking loudly on a cell phone, in the stores and every place. They don’t even see where they are walking or pushing a shopping cart, and while driving, it has been proven it’s as bad as a drunk driver. I see it often and attempt to stay my distance.