What do you do with your old phone when you replace it? If you are one of the responsible people who trade it in or recycle it, good on you.
But according to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum, most mobile phones that are put off for good simply disappear into drawers, closets and garages, or in landfills or trash cans tied for incineration. get trapped.
And when you consider that there will be an estimated 5.3 billion mobile phones left in 2022 alone, what you do with your devices really matters.
WEEE an international non-profit organization focused on the collection and treatment of electrical and electronic waste spoke ahead of its International E-Waste Day on Friday, October 14.
Eager to highlight the importance of recycling substandard equipment, the slogan for this year’s E-Waste Day is: “Recycle all, no matter how small.”
WEEE Director-General Pascal Leroy said this year’s campaign is focusing on smaller items, as it is much easier for them to accumulate unused and unknown in homes or toss in the ordinary garbage bin. What people don’t realize is that all these unimportant items have a lot of value, and together represent a massive amount of volume on a global scale. ,
In fact, to help people understand that astonishing 5.3 billion figure, WEEE said that if the average depth of the phones is 9 mm and are stacked flat on top of each other, the stack would be 31,000 miles (about 50,000 miles). kilometer) will increase. It is 120 times more than the International Space Station and an eighth of its way to the Moon.
The advantage of recycling mobile phones and other electronic devices is that it gives manufacturers access to their non-renewable natural resources such as gold, copper, silver and palladium, as well as other components that can be reused in new products. could.
In an effort to find out why so many people hold onto their old appliances rather than recycle or repair them, the WEEE conducted a survey this year involving 8,775 homes in six European countries. The most common reasons to hold onto older gadgets were:
– I may use it again in the future (46%)
– I plan to sell / give away (15%)
– It has sentimental value (13%)
– It may have value in the future (9%)
– I don’t know how to dispose of it (7%)
It’s one thing to keep them in the drawer. But throwing old gadgets in the trash is an even bigger problem, as it creates a huge amount of unnecessary waste that requires energy and resources to handle.
So, if you have an old phone that you’re about to throw away, or any kind of electronic device is collecting dust in the closet, give it a serious thought about recycling. Digital Trends has a handy guide for US-based people, while people in other countries just need to do a quick web search for information.
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