Dec 11
Image via fastcompany.com
Did you know that the energy it takes to produce a cell phone is greater than all of the energy the phone will use during the average cell phone’s lifetime? Just Barber, a green warrior in the fight against unnecessary consumption of planet’s resources, has come up with a new concept for cell phone design, providing another option, in addition to recycling your old phones and purchasing refurbished cell phones, for doing your part in saving our planet.
Barber’s idea is to create a durable cell phone made of materials that are 85% recyclable, which is designed to facilitate constant internal upgrades as technologies improve. Although well intentioned, I don’t really see how Barber’s plan is really making much progress, unfortunately. The majority of the problem with cell phones, in terms of waste, lies in the constant need to update the internals of a phone as technology increases, which leads to the toxic materials from which the internals are made being thrown away and thus polluting the earth. The plastic housing of a cell phone is easily replaceable with greener materials; it’s the speed at which phones are becoming outdated that is the source of the problem.
Until we make a phone (or maybe Apple’s already made it) that can be constantly updated to keep with the break-neck speed of technological advancement, the best way to go green in the cellular world is purchase refurbished.
Tagged with: go green • green cell phone design • recycling cell phones • refurbished cell phones
Nov 16
Last night on The Simpsons, Homer got a new position at work and was given a refurbished Blackberry (I figure it has to be refurbished as it appears to be a new looking 7230, and you know Mr. Burns isn’t going to miss the opportunity to save money by purchasing refurbished cell phones for his employees). We can now add Homer to the list of celebrity Blackberry holders. Later in the episode, a refurbished Treo made an appearance as well.
Apparently, Homer now Tweets as there is a Homer Simpson page on Twitter. Judging by the tweets, however, I’m not convinced that it’s actually run by any of the real writers of the show. Matt Groening needs to take some action and get the real Homer behind the Twitter helm of his new Blackberry.
Tagged with: Blackberry cell phone • Homer Simpson • refurbished blackberry • Refurbished Cell Phone • refurbished cell phones
Nov 03
ABI Research has released a study that shows merely 6% of all cell phones that are replaced per year are recycled (by refurbishment) and that out of the 94% that are thrown away, only 2% are properly disposed of. This means that of the hundreds of millions of cell phones that are replaced per year (many of which contain “conflict components”), approximately 460,000,000 cell phones are just thrown away, which leads to the harmful toxins in the plastics of the phones to seep into and pollute the Earth.
ABI expects the small percentage of recycled phones to grow, however. They expect the percentage of recycled phones to reach 14% by 2014. In order to reach this percentage, they encourage consumers to purchase refurbished cell phones because “refurbishment is the most ecologically sound way of handset disposal, since the device continues to be used and does not go into a landfill.”
You can learn more about what “refurbished” means and what refurbished cell phones are here.
Tagged with: environment • refurbished cell phones • refurbished mobiles • refurbishment
