This educational short film gives us a view on what we don’t normally see or take notice but is surely part of everyone’s everyday life. It follows the life of a mobile phone from being collected as from resources, manufactured, assembled, sold, bought, loved, used, replaced and forgotten.
Usually we use our phones for a year or two, maybe three if they’re lucky. But what happens to them after that? How many of us actually recycle or treat them properly after they are no longer in use? This creates an enormous amount of junk and wastes our resources as we leave them in the dumps. Only 1% of all the mobile phones are given new life through recycling. Products are often designed to last only for a short period of time before being replaced by faster and better ones. This makes consumers want to spend more money on replacements for the old products. Products like mobile phones and digital cameras should be designed so that they can be upgraded or easily disassembled after their lifetime so that materials and resources don’t get thrown away and wasted.
Mobile phones and electronic products such as digital cameras and memory sticks can be ‘designed for disassembly and longevity’. This enables re-usable components and materials such as; gold, palladium, nickel and silver, to be recovered and reused new products. Nowadays companies are starting to recognize the opportunity in transforming valuable pieces inside these used products into pieces for new products ready to be used again.
It is important when designing products to make sure there are designed for disassembly and longevity. Firstly if they last longer, then fewer replacements need to be bought and less waste is reacted. Secondly if products can be disassembled easily, they don’t need to be shredded in pieces just to recover the valuable resources and materials inside them.
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