About 40% of the mobile users in India, replace their phones in less than a year, out of which most of the phones are discarded. Discarding of these mobile phones adds to the major chunk of e-waste annually in the country. Now the thought of discarded phones going into landfill is worrisome do you know why? Because today the population of mobile devices has exceeded the human population!...reaching more than 8 billion.

Out of this enormous smartphone population only 20% gets recycled today.

It is said that half of your periodic table is present in a smartphone, which means that you are mining more and more elements from the earth every year to build newer smartphones. And when we throw away a smartphone, we are underutilizing the elements / metals present in them-because they have a much higher life.

Today, the smartphones are designed for “USE” & not “REUSE”...think about it, you can’t even open the phones today leave aside recycling the same in order to make use of the good quality elements inside them..thereby triggering an endless cycle of demand and consumption.

A Dutch company by the name Fairphones started off with an awareness campaign where they made a documentary around conflict materials in Democratic Republic of Congo..this project triggered the team to take action for transforming the electronics industry for good.

A Fairphones focusses on 4 areas- fair materials, good working conditions, long lasting design & reuse recycling. They source tin, tungsten and tantalum, from conflict-free sources and have integrated Fairtrade gold into the supply chain-this covers the fairness in consuming raw materials.

Circularity comes into picture because their product’s design is modular and built to last. Listen to the episode for more details about their business model. 

While Fairphones are slowly increasing their global presence, this quest needs more hands in order to pace up the transition, so..here is a thought, what if by 2030 all mobile phone manufacturers could give us an application where every element that goes into the mobile phone is detailed out!

Do let us know your thoughts about this idea. 

Website link : https://www.fairphone.com/en/story/?ref=header

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