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| Smartphone |
Smartphones are gadgets that have become a necessity in the society. A necessity is that which one cannot do without. In rural Africa small individual businesses are using phones to conduct business. People are conducting business from almost anywhere in the world through smartphones (emails etc.) There is a projection that, globally, 1.5 billion smartphones will be sold in 2016- exceeding the total sale of PCs, tablets, televisions and game consoles combined. Smartphone like all other products made and used by man has its raw materials derived from the natural environment.
The natural environment is a
resource for man. It is a resource to sustain generations of men. In using the
resource man is expected to sustain it. In using the natural environment man is
required to strike a delicate balance between use and reuse so that one
generation will not deprive another generation of the use of the natural
environment through depletion or damage or both.
In applying the foregoing philosophical
reasoning to the smartphone, I should like to share with you how green or
environmentally friendly the smartphone is getting. The production of any
product involves policy, raw materials, manufacture and finished product. That statement
is the parameters of what is going to follow.
MATERIALS
USED IN MAKING SMARTPHONES
A smartphone generally has
components of 40% metal, 40% plastic and 20% ceramics and resin. Some raw
materials that go into the making of smartphone are:
Tungsten
Tin
Tantalum
Gold
Silver
Nickel
Lead
Cobalt
Zinc
Copper
Arsenic
Chromium
Selenium
The extraction of the foregoing materials from
the earth poses danger to the natural environment. The clearing and penetration
into the earth to get the raw materials leave in its trail loss of species,
loss of biodiversity and uprooting of ecosystems. In the mining of copper, for
example, poisonous waste seep into ground water. Mine dust settling on nearby
vegetation affects them negatively. In Ghana, West Africa, in Obuasi a gold-mining
town, orange grown in the town has been found to be toxic. The point I am
trying to make is that the amazing multifunctional smartphone you are using is
manufactured at some environmental cost.
TOXIC
CHEMICALS
The three hazardous chemicals used in
electronics are:
BFRs (bromated flame retardants)
PVC (polyvinyl chloride)
Phthalates
Out of the three let us take phthalate as an
example of the toxic problem caused by chemicals to the environment. Phthalates
are used in softening PVC (polyvinyl chloride), and making plastic flexible.
Because of the prevalence of plastic in our lives (40% in smartphone), phthalates
enter the environment. In the United States, studies on rodents exposed to high
level of phthalates showed reduced hormonal levels and cause of birth defects.
COMPANIES
GOING GREEN
Toxic Policy
NO
|
GRADE
|
COMPANY
|
1
|
Top
|
Apple, Black Berry
|
2
|
Middle
|
Accer, Fairphone, Samsung, LG, Huawei
|
3
|
Bottom
|
Microsoft-insufficient policy, Alcatel, Arcos, Doro,
Google, HTC
|
Toxic (BFRs, PVC and Phthalates) free phones
NO
|
COMPANY
|
PHONE
|
1
|
Samsung
|
All Phones
|
2
|
Apple
|
All iPhone
|
3
|
Black Berry Ltd.
|
Black Berry Phones
|
4
|
LG
|
Phones
|
5
|
Sony
|
All phones
|
6
|
Huawei
|
Mate S and Mate 8
|
Recycling
Smartphone companies that use recycled
materials as raw materials save themselves the trouble of getting all their raw
materials from the earth, and thereby reducing environmental degradation and
pollution. Fairphone is an example of a company that recycle old phones, thus
reducing electronic waste.
PARTING SHOT
The natural environment is a resource for
man. The materials for the sustenance the personal life of man is derived from
the natural environment. The tools man use to make their life comfortable are
made from materials extracted from the natural environment. Smartphone is one
such tool. However, in using the natural environment as a resource, man has not
done so sustainably.
Having acknowledged that trend, the only
alternative is to use the natural environment sustainably. In environmental
parlance it is termed “going green”. In this post I am dwelling on the
smartphone, and I have shown what goes into its making and the associated
environmental costs. In addition, I have shown, from extraction to finished
product, the shift to green ways of producing the smartphone, hence green
smartphones.
The onus then lies on you to patronize the
production and consumption of green smartphone to help in the fight for a clean
and balanced natural environment in a sustainable way. A little here, a little
there is the way to a global achievement.
Reference:
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