Detailed info about the practice of mobile phone recycling and how to do your bit for nature by utilizing a simple practice of phone recycling
Hunting for the New
Today, mobile phones are not a requirement, but instead a necessity – more like the food for life. Talking on the phone is a side-feature of the mobile now, and not the main feature.
For today’s generation, the mobile needs to have every aspect of communication in it, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, everything, anything.
And that is why whenever a new technological trend (for example the recent explosion of Android smart phones) arises, there is a mass shift.
Everyone who is even a little into technology, wants to chuck out there old phones and buy a new one. Other reasons such as the phone being very old, dysfunctional etc. also exist. Or your contract is finally over and you’ve decided to go with prepaid cell phones from now on.
Normally, we either sell our phones away, or hand it to some friend or relative, but what we do not foresee is that at some point of time, the phone would be thrown away.
This is the reason why mobile phone recycling is such an important issue, not only because it helps the company in reusing the same material and thereby reducing production costs, but also because of the significant environmental effects.
The Need to Recycle
Various surveys report that a mobile owner changes his/her mobile phone every 18-24 months or so. While the phone is discarded, little or no thought is given to the future impacts it would have. A mobile phone has a whole array of hazardous material comprising it, with lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic being the primary ingredients.
Mobile phone recycling is also important because mobile phones are now the fastest growing manufactured garbage world over. However, mobile phone recycling is not as simple as it sounds. It has its own set of benefits and drawbacks, which are being briefly highlighted below:
The Benefits of Mobile Recycling
- The first and foremost benefit is that mobile phone recycling reduces the waste culmination around living and working spaces.
Additional costs incurred by companies for procuring raw materials such as copper, mercury etc. is cut down as it is readily available from the recyclable phones. - There are a lots companies which provide cash for every phone you recycle with them. In fact, it’s much better to opt for services such as SellMyMobile, which compares prices from multiple Mobile Phone recycling companies and helps you sell cell phone at the best possible price offer available in mobile recycling market.
In other countries (such as India), some companies (such as Nokia) may themselves drive the initiative to recycle your old mobile phone.
Going towards a total statistical viewpoint, one should be aware that
- One mobile phone when recycled can save 44 hours worth of power for a single laptop
- When one million cell phones are recycled, about 75 pounds of gold, 33 pounds of palladium, 772 pounds of silver and 35,274 pounds of copper is recovered. These materials are then used in various different industries such as automotive and jewellery making.
You can help someone less fortunate than you by giving them your old mobile, as recycling does not always mean refurbishing your old cell.
The Drawbacks of throwing your old phone in dustbin
• A mobile phone is an electronic gadget which consists of complex circuitry, battery, screen and a keypad. It requires manual labor to completely disassemble it into the different components. As the battery houses most of the harmful chemicals, this process could lead to harmful exposure.
• The non-disposable material in the mobile phones are normally burned or disposed off, which if not met with suitable methods again lead to serious contamination of the environment.
• Most mobile phones recyclers ship the old phones to third-world countries, where cheap labor is paid to disassemble the phone and burn away the unrecoverable components. As a result, the whole process turns into just another non-environment friendly, unsustainable scam.
• Recovering information from your old phone is not a very difficult task nowadays with the plethora of software available. Therefore critical information such as your credit card number, social security number, or even your personal contact numbers in the wrong hands can be a serious issue.
We might not be able to see it now, but mobile phone recycling has always been a most important issue, which we as a society has neglected. We need to remove this mentality of ours that how a thing so small be of any consequence.
We need to sustain the earth, for we alone are its sole survivors as well as protectors. So the next time you feel like doing something good for the World, consider recycling your phone before buying a new one. It really helps a lot.