Recycling your Mobile Phones-What, Why & How
Keep this practice alive
Everyone has a different idea associated with the word recycle. Not only individuals but even organizations. Different meanings of the word can be found here.
We have obviously learned about “Recycling” in our schools, and even might have collected some items to recycle back then as a part of our class activity. It was fun back then, but as we grew up it became less fun and eventually boring. Somewhere along the way its importance was lost. Any material that we get tired of using, without a second thought goes straight into our dustbins.
According to Statista, there 3.5 billion unique smartphone users in the world currently. This number is expected to rise to 3.8 billion in the year 2021. An average smartphone lasts 2–3 years, after that the battery starts depleting significantly even if you have barely used it.
Trends show that many American and European users have held onto their phones for an average of 23 months before upgrading to a new one. But this is not the case in some of the Asian countries like China, India where online shopping is more prevalent and low-cost phones are popular. The technological advancement in the mobile industry has managed to lure their customers to replace their old phones with new models on the same day as launch.
On getting a new device we either sell the old phone or store it at our homes for various reasons. Some put it to secondary use while some leave it in their drawers and forget about it and others who are reluctant to dispose it off fearing their data might be stolen if the device lands up in wrong hands.
Why to recycle mobile phones ?
Mobile phones contain a lot of material that can be reused. The most valuable materials inside a phone are precious metals like gold, silver and platinum which are found in the circuit board(micro-processors) in minimal amounts. These elements or raw materials require a significant amount of resources to mine and manufacture.
The battery inside the phone also contains many useful materials like copper, nickle, cadmium. When the e-waste is dumped on landfills, they pollute the air and water, contaminate the soil and affects the environment negatively.
You can very well imagine the amount of e-waste that is being generated. Electronic wastes are discarded electronic appliances such as mobile phones, computers, televisions etc. Often, the e-waste is improperly dismantled and burned, producing toxic emissions. Therefore, it is important for phone users to dispose off and recycle their devices responsibly.
How does recycling happen ?
Before coming to this topic, let’s first know what you need to do before you decide to recycle your phone.
Here’s a checklist that you can follow.
- Check how old your phone is and whether it is working or not
- Check if there is any important data like photos and documents
- Remove the sim cards and the Micro SD Card
- Remove any lock — passwords, pin, pattern locks, fingerprint
- Perform a factory-reset of your phone to get rid of any data
- You can also consider sending the charger of your phone to be recycled if it is of no use to you
- Batteries are take out and recycled separately. The phone is shredded and heated to around 1100C.
- Samples are then turned into dust and undergo further chemical processing, before being taken to a smelter which takes out the relevant metals for reuse.
- To recover plastics from the phone components, energy-from-incineration is used. The plastic of the phones outer body is usually granulated at then reformulated and used in moldings.
What is recycled ?
Almost all of the materials extracted from phones during the recycling process can be used to make new products.
- Recovered metals can be used in jewelry making, electronics, and automotive manufacturing
- Recovered plastics are recycled and used to make garden furniture, plastic packaging, and auto parts.
- Refurbished units that are resold to end users
Giving your phones away for recycling is very easy these days. Many supermarkets, online companies, charities and mobile phone shops will be glad to take an unwanted mobile phone for recycling. You can find one easily near you just by typing “recycle phone” in your browser !!
Sources :
- Mobile Phone Recycling — Wikipedia
- How to Recycle your Old Mobile Phone in India — Techarrival
- The Benefits of Cell Phone Recycling — Treehugger
- Managing e-waste effectively — Yourstory
