Mobile phone recycling is one of the necessary practice to
save the planet and also to generate money in the process while keeping up with
the technology. Electronic waste became major environmental issues nowadays
with technologies growth. Improper disposal of phones fills out the landfills
and continue harming the planet and putting lives in danger. Smartphones are
here to stay, they’re simply part of our lives, so learning about the
importance of proper disposal and recycling of these devices brings us one step
closer to the utopia we all dream of living in.
They are awesome and connect us in ways we never imagined
30 years ago. However, many of us are blissfully ignorant of the negative
ecological impact of these lovely mass they produced. Every youngster anywhere
in the world including myself replaces a phone almost every 18 months. Thus,
mobile phones hardly have a life-cycle of 2 years and of course most of us
wants the latest smart phone. With extensive use of mobile phones, network
consumption has also increased over time, countries all over the world are
using mobile phones at an aggressive rate. Along with the speed of using cell
phones, the rate of dumping them has increased almost four times.
We replace our phones so frequently and as a result,
millions of mobile phones are getting dumped every year filling up the
landfills. Now, this e-waste or electronic waste is posing a serious threat to
the environment. A lot of the recycling that is done, does not take place in
environmental sensitive way, instead, they are shipped off to Africa where they
are dismantled and burnt. The raw materials are extracted without following
proper procedure to protect the environment and workers. The reason is that
huge amount of electronic garbage is created every year, recycling those gets
expensive. Developed countries outsource their environmental problems to
developing countries which is very wrong morally and environmentally. The
result is harmful heavy metals leaking into soils, rivers, and air polluting
all three of them. The irony is imported agricultural products from these developing
nations are showing higher levels of these compounds and developed countries are
consuming these imported produce.
There are various ways to use the mobile phones properly to
avoid throwing it away. First is, to preserve the battery for proper disposal,
the most harmful part of a phone. Look for local recycling drop off locations
for your battery and do a little homework to find out if the company is a
serious recycler, not a waste exporter. The best options turn out to be reuse,
just because of the difficulty of recycling all the compounds in your phone.
So, if you can pass your device to someone in need, you extended the life of
the device keeping it out of landfills for the time being. Another great option
to get rid of your old mobile phone is, to sell it to a company that will send
it for the purpose of recycling.

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