International research shows that by using a life cycle approach, exploring the impacts of each stage a product goes through, designers can make informed decisions that lead to more socially and environmentally responsible products
with lower carbon impacts.
Life Pscycle-ology takes a humorous look at the life story of an unhappy mobile phone, who seeks therapy after his owner dumps him in favour of a new model:
Some
mobile phone facts:
- There are more than 4 billion mobile phone users worldwide
- Less than 1 percent of the millions of cell phones retired and discarded annually are recycled
- A global consumer survey released by Nokia reveals that only 3% of the total mobile phone users recycle their phones
- Over 3 billion people globally own mobiles: if each of them returned one phone for recycling, over 240,000 tons of raw materials could be saved. The carbon emissions saved from this would be the equivalent to taking 4 million cars off the road
- Nokia conducted a study which found that between 65-80% of a phone can be recycled and roughly 18,500 homes could be powered for a year with the energy wasted by old phones being thrown away instead of being recycled
I have always this preoccupation:
What happens to an obsolete mobile phone?
Where is it going to die?
I'm curious about this secret life.
Sometime ago it happened to me: I didn't know what to do with my old mobile phone.
I wanted to deliver it somewhere, to give it to recycle. But it was not easy.
At least in Portugal, where I was asking in electric devices shops, and nobody could tell me where to deliver it.
I have a higher environmental conscious, since I'm working on these kind of issues, but for ordinary people, I can't imagine the normal procedure.
This kind of electronic waste is a huge problem. Especially by the fact that the resources to produce them have a high environmental and social costs.
.JPG)
