Cell phones appear to be a part of everyone's life. Everywhere you look, there are people staring at them or holding them. I'm sure you can't fathom not having the most recent one as soon as you hear about it. They make our life easier and provide us with endless amusement. They also offer tools that can assist us in our daily lives. Phone cameras are often utilized, and it is not difficult to locate videos taken with a mobile phone. The improvements to cameras and videos with each new phone entice consumers to purchase a new one, even if their old one is still functional.
Do you have any idea what happens to the old ones?
Did it ever occur to you to consider that? It occurred to me, so I decided to conduct study and then provide it to you all. While I couldn't picture life without my phone, it appears that we may have a global problem with old phones. In the United States of America, 1.52 billion mobile phones were purchased in 2019.
Every year, 150 million mobile phones are abandoned in the United States. Around 20% of those are then recycled. When a new one is purchased, the rest are typically merely stashed away in drawers.
Recycling Dilemma
This left me perplexed as to why more aren't recycled. I am a great believer in the three Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle. In sixth grade, I learnt about how our actions affect our wonderful earth. So looking into what would be causing others to not recycle helped me realize that sleeker, smaller phones are more difficult to recycle. They must be completed by hand rather than by machine. Furthermore, the earnings from recycling cell phones are quite low. There is just not enough motivation for e-recyclers to provide this service.
We discovered 35, 274 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium in a million cell phones.
On the other hand, we may reduce the amount of time we spend mining for the rich jewels that can be found inside every gadget. Mining for these materials is difficult because they are presently fairly rare.
We could recycle them instead of burning them (letting poisons into the air) or filling a space in a landfill and waiting for the dangerous materials used to make them to seep into the earth.
Health concerns that might be discovered
This pollution can harm both humans and animals' health. Lead is one of the key components, and it is known to cause cancer and to impair cognitive processes. The other one that we see a lot is mercury, which is lethal to animals. It also causes significant sensory dysfunction, muscular weakness, and memory loss.
What can you do to assist?
Looking at all of this data, I wondered, "What can we do?" Here are a few things to remember. Repurpose them as remotes or install emulators on them for on-the-go gaming. They also make excellent e-readers! Donating them to organizations or reliable websites can also assist in keeping them from becoming an issue. Let us all do our share to make tomorrow a better place.
