Where Are Your Old Cellphones?

cellphones.jpg

Our friends over at INFORM have started a new series called The Secret Life. First on the agenda: cellphones. These devices that have totally transformed communication over the past 20 years have also become too-synonymous with “disposable” leading to their being sent by the millions to landfills and incinerators. And yet, many, if not all, of the materials used to make them are reclaimable and/or recyclable.

INFORM has put together a great 5 minute video about the need for more cellphone recycling, while also showing in some detail what happens to these phones during the recycling process. We encourage you to check out their website, watch the video, and then take those old phones out of your junk drawer and find a way to recycle them (they provide the info on how to do just that, of course).

In addition, this seems like a great time to remind everyone about the Greener Gadgets Conference coming up this Friday, February 1st. Our recent Green Renter with conference co-chairs Marc Alt and Jill Fehrenbacher was a great overview of the need to re-think the design process for digital technology, complete with some great examples like the BOGOlight that the audience got to pass around and test out. We’ll have a video version of their presentation on our site soon, but you can register for the conference right now.

Cellphone image by Chris Jordan, taken from inhabitat.com


Posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 4:01 pm | Tagged in Pollution, Products, Recycling, Sustainability, Technology, Waste | posted by Jamie

AddThis Social Bookmark Button   Print Print   Email Email