Better to know, behind the scenes of smart devices
Does your house have computers, tv screens, cell phones or iPads? Perhaps you have an electric car?
Currently, over 6.5 billion people in the world use smartphones out of a total population of 7.7 billion. Earth's population and the amount of smartphone users are both increasing every year.
When you upgrade to the new phone, what should you do with the old phone? I’ve seen a dirty old smartphone thrown on the street but hopefully you didn’t choose that to be your answer!
People throw away millions of cell phones each year in favor of newer technology. That’s a lot! Do you think electronic devices are causing harm to the environment? Not just the manufacturing process but where these products wind up after we dispose of them.
The inside of electronic devices have metals like silver, gold, palladium, copper, cobalt, and lithium. These are all coming from natural resources.
Sure they are recyclable and it sounds like a good thing if we recycle all of them. But things don't go as smoothly as we hope.
Up to 80% of a discarded phone's parts can be recycled or reused in some way. But currently, only about 20% are effectively recycled. Yes, all those valuable natural resources are either buried in a landfill or just piling years worth of old cell phones in your house drawer. And these discarded materials which wind up in the landfill can pollute the air and contaminate soil, plants, animals and even drinking water because they can leak harmful toxins such as lead and mercury!
Companies keep producing smart devices every single moment. They have to get these valuable metals from somewhere. But where? In nature… But how?
In order to mine minerals, they often cut and burn trees and vegetation to clear the land. That causes damage to the landscape and harms wildlife habitats. Contamination of surface water and groundwater is also a problem.
Some places in the world, especially Africa, depend on mining minerals for living. And sadly, often there are poor working conditions or dangerous environments and often children our age have to work instead of going to school in order to eat.
Think a little more about phones, cars, computers, iPads… how far they have traveled in order to come to you.
Computers are great devices. We can learn, we can watch shows, play chess with my grandfather in a remote place…
What we can do to help is use what we own for as long as we can instead of buying new technology so often but I know companies make devices in the way to make us want to upgrade every year. Big money goes to their pocket but these companies should have an understanding of Earth and be responsible with the natural resources they are consuming. They should give more information to their customers about how to sort e-waste. Really, the lack of knowledge is harming the environment.
Let’s recycle or donate our computer devices (I can recommend this website! https://www.gazelle.com)and let people know about the knowledge we've learned.
And lastly, we must respect every person and nature.