The post-consumer life of your phone
E-waste
Apple iPhones are only programmed to work for 2-4 years. So what happens to all the iPhones thrown away every year? This page seeks to find that answer.
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Around 150 million iPhones are discarded every year. One of three things happens to them when they are longer of use:
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1. They are properly disposed of, as in they are returned to Apple, who reuses the materials to develop the next generations of iPhones, or,
2. They are thrown in the trash or given to an unvetted "e-waste" distribution center, wherein both cases, they end up in landfills in developing nations across the globe, or,
3. most common, they stay in user's drawers and become dusty and forgotten about
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In recent years, Apple has made a conscious effort to recycle iPhones in order to reuse their material and keep them out of landfills. Currently, the data on Apple and e-waste specifically is not available, so the scope of this page will instead examine e-waste using a broader lens.
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Overall, less than 20% of unused phones are recycled each year. This means the majority of them are ending up in landfills, where electronics account for 70% of a landfill's toxic waste. The US ships the majority of its waste overseas to developing countries, so these electronics most often end up in low-income areas, which have poor regulations in place for keeping toxins from polluting the land, water, and people. In developing countries, people earn their income by salvaging valuable metals from e-waste. However, this is often accomplished by burning incredibly toxic electronic waste or sifting through it by hand, which is also harmful to one's health.
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As the world continues to develop technologically, e-waste is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. The global amount of electronic waste generated has increased by 21% in just five years. Furthermore, the more we as humans deplete our natural resources and find it more and more difficult to mine the precious metals we depend on, we will require the recycling and reusing of old materials in order to sustain our way of life.
Environmental Costs
Burning e-waste is a method used to extract precious metals, such as copper, but it emits extremely toxic gases, which are both dangerous to one's health and leads to air pollution.
In open-style landfills with little regulation, where e-waste often ends up, the toxins from electronics can seep into the ground and poison the soil and water supplies
Class Connection
Global supply networks are designed to produce countless things quickly and cheaply for the consumer, and importantly, they are typically thought of as ending with the consumer. Strategies to combat things like fast fashion or quickly changing technology, like being a conscientious consumer, fail to grasp that the supply chain continues on even after that consumer is finished with the product. In fact, consumer waste from developed nations often ends back up in the same or similarly situated developing country where the raw resources to make that very product were harvested. It is at these two extreme ends of the supply chain – digging in the mines to extract cobalt and digging in a landfill to the same end– that requires better attention from the consumer and the capitalistic structure in general.