Does buying a new smartphone damage the environment? (yes)

It may not seem obvious, but it’s much better for the environment to keep your old mobile phone running as long as possible. It’s a common misconception that new mobile phones are more ‘environmentally friendly’ – the opposite is true.

The production of the actual device is by far the biggest environmental problem. So does it follow that, if you were to keep your mobile phone for longer, you would case less damage? Let’s investigate.

Mobile phones and server farms are harming to the earth and will have the greatest carbon impression in the tech business by 2040, scientists have found.

Researchers arrived at this resolution in the wake of figuring the carbon impression of gadgets, for example, mobiles, PCs, tablets and work areas – just as server farms and correspondence arranges altogether known as data and interchanges innovation (ICT). The group from McMaster University in Canada observed cell phones to be the most harming of all gadgets in the business, with the majority of their emanations originating from the generation chain.

As indicated by the analysts, cell phone parts that require the most measure of vitality to create are the chip and the motherboard – as they are comprised of valuable metals mined at a mind-boggling expense.

While these telephones devour little vitality to work, 85% of their discharges sway originates from generation, the analysts said. They also found that the software driving the ICT industry has a greater impact on emissions than previously thought.

Mehmet Belkhir , founded of ICGTT, said: “We found that the ICT industry as a whole was growing, but it was incremental.

“Today it sits at about 1.5%. If trends continue, ICT will account for as much as 14% for the total global footprint by 2040, or about half of the entire transportation sector worldwide.

So what can you do? Hang on to your old phone for longer, or if you MUST get a new one then make sure to get a long contract. This way you won’t be able to be tempted to trade it in earlier than necessary. The longer you have it = less environment damage caused, quite simply. Given that it’s now possible in the UK (and commonplace, too) to get a 24 month contract (this is my phone here), how long until they will do 36, or even 48 months?

The cost of smartphones continues to rise. So keep it for longer, save your wallet and save the planet. 🙂

Source: RESET