Planet Earth is teeming with phones. There are about 5 billion cellular phones in use right now, and 500 million of them—10 percent—are smartphones.1 Unfortunately, these numbers are swelling. The United Nations expects the number of smartphones to quadruple to 2 billion in just four years.2 At each stage of its lifecycle, a smartphone is quite a ways off from being the slightest bit “green”.
Smartphone Raw Materials and Manufacturing: Just like your TVs, laptops, ipod, and other gadgets, smartphones are electronics, and unfortunately all electronics contain toxins. They’re made of more than 1,000 materials, including chlorinated solvents, brominated flame retardants (BFRs), heavy metals, plastics—including the “poison plastic” PVC—and gases.3 According to a powerful 2009 article by The Globe and Mail, smartphones are “bloodstains on your fingertips.”4 The phones contain tantalum, which comes from the mineral Coltan, which is dug out by hand, often by children, in mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the last twelve years, seven million people have died in the fight to control the country’s 25 trillion dollars worth of untapped minerals, and every smartphone purchase finances those deaths.5
Smartphone Packaging: After it’s manufactured, the smartphone is shipped to its consumer in an oversized package that often isn’t even recyclable. The consumer anxiously tears away the packaging and sends it to the landfill.
Consumer Usage of Smartphones: Mobile phone usage contributes much more to greenhouse gas emissions than phone production. According to the Guardian:
One estimate for the emissions caused by manufacturing the phone itself is just 16kg CO2e, equivalent to nearly 1kg of beef. If you include the power it consumes over two typical years that figure rises to 22kg. But the footprint of the energy required to transmit your calls across the network is about three times all of this put together, taking us to a best estimate of 94kg CO2e over the life of the phone, or 47kg per year.6
Smartphone Disposal: According to the Environmental Protection Agency, most consumers do not know where or how to recycle their cell phones. This is a huge part of the reason why only 10% of unwanted phones are recycled.7 The rest end up in landfills as e-waste , where their toxic components contaminate land and waters.
Smartphones—the Bright Side? Smartphones do acquire a tinge of green when you consider their remarkable functionality. Smartphones can replace many other gadgets, including basic cell phones, mp3 players, cameras, video players, netbooks, GPS devices, paper maps, paper calendars, paper notepads, and maybe even personal computers! They enable environmental activists to connect with other activists like never before. Most importantly, many smartphones (especially the iPhone) provide applications and games that make living green much easier. Here’s just a sampling of the green apps out there
- Good Guide—iPhone and Text Messaging—Scan a product barcode to instantly get information about the safety and sustainability of over 75,000 products.8
- Hidden Park—iphone—Get the kids outside! This game blends fantasy with reality, leading children through an adventure in their local park. Discover trolls, fairies, and tree genies with your little ones☺9
- Project Noah–iphone and Android—Learn about thousands of organisms from around the world and help scientists with ongoing research by documenting nature with your phone.10
- Lazy Green—iPhone—Raise a virtual animal threatened by extinction (sea turtle, lion, polar bear, penguin, hummingbird) by completing energy-saving tasks in real life.11
Should you get a smartphone?
That’s a moral dilemma you’ll have to tackle yourself. If you already have a basic cell phone, mp3 player, camera, video player, netbook, GPS device, paper map, paper calendar, paper notepad, and computer, isn’t the smartphone redundant? Ask yourself: Do I really need it right now? If you do purchase a smartphone, or if you already have one, follow these tips to make it just a shade greener. Note that many of these apply to old-fashioned cell phones too!
- Choose a green-ish device. No electronics company is truly green, but some are a bit better than others. For example, Nokia trumps Apple. Check out Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics for more information.
- Log off. Don’t be the one texting or googling underneath the table through dinner. Less phone time equates to less carbon emissions.12
- To further reduce your energy consumption, dim your smartphone’s backlighting. Switch off your wireless and Bluetooth applications when you don’t need them. Unplug the charger as soon as the battery is full.
- Avoid buying all the cheesy accessories for your phone and instead make your own accessories! If you prefer buying to DIY, check out this wooden iPhone case.
- Recycle your dead smartphone. While you’re at it, get some cash in exchange: Battery Recycling and Disposal for your Household.
- Use your smartphone until it dies. The average phone is used for two years, even though most phones could last for ten years!14 Don’t be tempted by the latest specs and trends. If you catch yourself eying a new sleeker model, once again ask yourself: Do I really need it right now?
