E-Waste : Repairing, not recycling is the way to tackle the smartphone e-waste explosion

In 2021, 3,8 billion people across the world own a smartphone.

This corresponds to 48,33% of the world’s population. Considering that in 2016, the number of smartphone owners was limited to 2,5 billion or 33,58% of the global population, the increase appears staggering.

With smartphone sales expected to skyrocket, mobile phone waste streams are equally set to explode.

Smartphones are responsible for 10% of the world’s annual e-waste rate, which, in 2019, translated to 50 million tonnes. In weight, said waste stream corresponds to 300,000 double decker buses.

Beyond its pollution potential, smartphone e-waste represents a missed economic opportunity. Globally, only 17, 4% of e-waste gets recycled, resulting in a general raw material loss equivalent to the material value of $10 billion. With demand for mobile phones at an all-time high, the internationally fast dwindling supply of critical raw materials needed for their production has begun to take its toll on production. The Royal Society of Chemistry estimates that 6 key components needed for smartphone production will run out in the next 100 years. As of now, the microchip shortage currently affecting the car industry is predicted to similarly inconvenience smartphone manufacturers.

This is why extending the existing lifecycle of phones is crucial to the industry.

Using smartphones for longer will not only save on raw materials but also lessen e-waste streams as well as save on energy needed for recycling. By keeping smartphones for four years rather than the customary three, the number of phones sent to waste could be reduced by as much as 25%.

Extending smartphone usage is also dependent on phone manufacturers.

As consumers are not only wont to discard phones when a new model comes out but also when there are no more software updates available or functionality becomes compromised, manufacturers need to move away from built in obsolescence, that is, the tendency to create a product for a finite life span so as to induce future sales along the line.

For repair to be feasible on the consumer end, phone manufacturers are also tasked with making spare parts available to third party repair services as well as affordable to consumers looking to fix their phones.

With Right-to-Repair legislation on the rise in Europe, attitudes to phone repair are slowly shifting.

As such, the EU has incorporated ‘Right to repair’ within its circular economy plan whilst France released a repairability index in 2021, providing insight on malfunctioning devices and informing customers on how easy phone repair can be.

Financial measures to incentivise phone reuse are also becoming more popular. In Sweden, tax incentives worth up to almost 2500 EUR exist for appliance repairs, and similar (albeit less lucrative) schemes exist in Austria.

Ideas to render the approach profitable to manufacturers are diverse. Re-modelling existing phone contracts-which have consumers purchase phones in a time span going anywhere from 18-24 months- into ‘phone lease contracts’ is one prominent suggestion. This would see the user pay for the phone as a service, returning it to the manufacturer when it malfunctions. The producer then gets to mine the precious raw materials contained within the phone whilst also refurbishing and returning the product to its user.

Restricting the number of phones owned by individuals has also been posited as a solution to the smartphone e-waste crisis. Getting white collar workers to stop using a personal as well as a business phone alone could slash smartphone usage by half a billion.

Beyond the measures introduced, eliminating smartphone e-waste is dependent on changing consumer mindset. With phones having become a status symbol with a waste factor equivalent to that of high fashion, affixing recycled products with greater inherent value needs to take centre stage if smartphone repair is to have a beneficial impact on the environment.