Bling, ring and sling: phone users get a wake-up call
|
By Daniel Nelson
The worlds 1.2 billion mobile phone users will have increased to 2 billion by the end of the year, led by Africa where mobile use is growing faster than anywhere else. Existing users are also buying more: phones are built to last 10 years, but people change them on average every 18 months. In Britain alone, 15 million mobs are upgraded every year. There are believed to be between 20 million and 90 million unused phones lying around in the UK. Few people spare a thought for what happens to their discards, tossed aside in favour of shinier, faster models with more functions. But it matters: along with the bling (gold, silver, platinum and liquid crystal which, weight for weight, is more valuable than gold), phones contain a range of poisons, which, once abandoned, leach into the earth and water. Fortunately, as a small exhibition in Londons Science Museum shows, some engineers are onto the problem. Richard Wool, for example, at Delaware University in the US, has concocted a new recipe for circuit boards that could replace problem plastics with natural materials, such as soybeans and chicken feathers. Roger Wise and his team in Britain have devised a biodegradable circuit board made of pasta. Kerry Kirwan at Britains Warwick University is focusing on a new type of phone cover made of biodegradable, environment-friendly plastic. (Plastics make up more than half the mobile phone waste mountain.) Recycler Pete Murphy is working on mobiles that automatically disassemble themselves when the time is right a production line in reverse. Also on display is a phone cover with an implanted sunflower seed. As the flower grows, it absorbs nutrients from the biodegrading cover. If the idea ever catches on, you would be able to bury your old phone cover in the garden (along with the cat). Lawmakers have heard the call, too. European-wide WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) legislation will make it illegal to throw mobs onto landfill sites. Regulations are also eliminating nickel-cadmium batteries (leaving a toxic time-tomb of tens of thousands of old batteries to be tackled). Another approach mentioned in the exhibition is to deal with the reasons people buy new phones. If we want to design things that will really last a long time, we need to understand exactly why we get rid of them, says Tim Cooper of Sheffield Hallam University. If phones felt stylish and beautiful, like jewellery, rather than merely fashionable, we might be more likely to keep them for longer, he points out. IN THE MEANTIME, several NGOs are keen to recycle your mobile phones. Try B Ring B Ring your mobile to Oxfam * Science Museum Phone Facts: + 97 per cent of British females and 92 per cent of males have access to a mobile phone + Nine out of ten 11-21-year-olds text daily; more than half do so over five times day + Toxic substances in mobs can include cadmium, palladium, beryllium, lead solder, arsenic, mercury and bromine Dead Ringers? |
Printable version
top of the page