To save the planet don't buy a new phone
- Thread starter ubuysa
- Start date
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
I'm on a galaxy 3. I don't need anything special either.
May have left out "fold" from the name and the fact that I want everything weather I need it or not.
I do think stories like this can be quite misleading though. The running cost of a phone are so tiny (talking like £10 or something stupid a year in electricity) that it makes it seem really terrible. But actually it's the offset rather than the cost.
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Martinr36
MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Yeah if we looked at everything like this we wouldn't buy anything
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Ok, so this was 3 years ago, but at the time they reckoned it cost around £1.09 to charge a phone for a full year, one full charge a day:
www.mymemory.co.uk
Just to add to this, there's been a significant effort in the computing arena, especially in the mobile space to use recycled materials and especially, rare earth metals. Apple only use 100% recycled aluminium on all their phones and ipads, as well as recycled rare earth metals.
These recycle services like MusicMagpie, and O2 Recycle etc, they refurbish newish models for resale at an exorbitant profit, but the older models are put into recycling the materials and these are sold back to the big giants like Apple and Samsung.
There's more to this story than meets the eye. I tend not to side with the huge mega corporations, but on this front, I do think they are taking green initiatives quite seriously. Certainly moreso than most of our local "recycling services" where you're fined if you put the wrong thing in the green bin, and then you find out it's all being dumped in landfill anyway as they can't afford the costs of recycling, even though a large portion of our very high council tax is supposed to go into this exact purpose.
www.theguardian.com
www.thecourier.co.uk
eandt.theiet.org
Steve Wozniak - Apples Cofounder - just announced he's starting a space venture purely to clean up space junk. A cynical eye would purely look at the sale of recycled goods for profit, but there's no doubting that it's a risky endeavour that will have to stomach a big initial loss before any profits are acquired, and there are obvious good intentions in the grand scheme of things:
www.independent.co.uk
In my opinion, it's not realistic or helpful to aim for a true concept of "carbon zero", there is no such thing and it's not achievable. It's carbon offset that's the key, what are you doing to mitigate the carbon cost that you are expending. There's a balance in it. As with all things. Swinging too far either way is harmful.
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www.mymemory.co.uk
Just to add to this, there's been a significant effort in the computing arena, especially in the mobile space to use recycled materials and especially, rare earth metals. Apple only use 100% recycled aluminium on all their phones and ipads, as well as recycled rare earth metals.
These recycle services like MusicMagpie, and O2 Recycle etc, they refurbish newish models for resale at an exorbitant profit, but the older models are put into recycling the materials and these are sold back to the big giants like Apple and Samsung.
There's more to this story than meets the eye. I tend not to side with the huge mega corporations, but on this front, I do think they are taking green initiatives quite seriously. Certainly moreso than most of our local "recycling services" where you're fined if you put the wrong thing in the green bin, and then you find out it's all being dumped in landfill anyway as they can't afford the costs of recycling, even though a large portion of our very high council tax is supposed to go into this exact purpose.
'Plastic recycling is a myth': what really happens to your rubbish?
You sort your recycling, leave it to be collected – and then what? From councils burning the lot to foreign landfill sites overflowing with British rubbish, Oliver Franklin-Wallis reports on a global waste crisis
www.theguardian.com
Fife bin strike threat over claims recycling is being sent to landfill
Fife's binmen are threatening strike action amid claims they've been told to throw recycling into landfill. Unions have planned a mass protest next month
www.thecourier.co.uk
Covid-19 causes UK recycling to go straight to landfill
Researchers have called for a revamping of the recycling system in the UK as the Covid-19 lockdown has hampered our ability to properly process recyclable waste.
eandt.theiet.org
Steve Wozniak - Apples Cofounder - just announced he's starting a space venture purely to clean up space junk. A cynical eye would purely look at the sale of recycled goods for profit, but there's no doubting that it's a risky endeavour that will have to stomach a big initial loss before any profits are acquired, and there are obvious good intentions in the grand scheme of things:
Apple co-founder announces private space company to clean space debris
Privateer will apparently monitor and clean up objects in space, but little else is known about the company yet
www.independent.co.uk
In my opinion, it's not realistic or helpful to aim for a true concept of "carbon zero", there is no such thing and it's not achievable. It's carbon offset that's the key, what are you doing to mitigate the carbon cost that you are expending. There's a balance in it. As with all things. Swinging too far either way is harmful.
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jamiephillips909
Godlike
I got 3 dwarf apple trees on patio so thats gotta offset a phone upgrade 
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
TBH it was the hypocrisy of the younger generations that I found interesting about this article. Almost everyone you meet now is urging you to 'go green'. We see adverts where they use young people to accuse us 'old un's' of ruining the planet for them, of inaction in the face of a climate disaster of our making but which will impact their lives.
Fair enough. But what are the young people of today doing about it? I don't feel any guilt for the actions of my generation when I see all the 'young un's' on mobile phones 24 hours a day, 'talking' to people who likely live in the next street! No doubt the protestors who keep blocking the M25 in the name of 'climate change' coordinate themselves via their phones and social media.
Social media is not just bad for people it's bad for the planet. And not just in the wasteful cost of upgrading one's phone every two years to get a better camera, a bigger, brighter, higher resolution screen, or a new gimmick like folding screens - none of which most people actually need (which was the crux of the article I posted).
The real problem is the cost to the environment in building and operating the data centres that serve these social media tools. They might be trying to run them in a 'carbon neutral' way as far as power consumption goes, but that ignores the cost of building the site itself and it ignores the cost of building the equipment that goes in them. And that's without mentioning the hidden costs in mining the rare earth minerals that are so essential to modern electronic equipment (and batteries) - or the decommissioning costs.
My point in posting this was because of the absurdity of younger people lambasting my generation as damaging the planet, when through their mobile phones and social media use they're damaging the planet themselves! In the 1960's we though that the idea of 'fighting for peace' was absurd. The idea that 'social media is harmless' is equally absurd. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
My generation has nothing to be proud of about the way we lived and our impact on climate change, but back then we didn't know any better. Today we all know about climate change and that one of the biggest causes has been rampant consumerism. Yet even now, when we know what the problems are, the younger people will not change their habits to help. It's much easier, and far more comforting, to moan about how stupid us 'old un's' were and pretend that you're so much more enlightened - on social media of course.
Fair enough. But what are the young people of today doing about it? I don't feel any guilt for the actions of my generation when I see all the 'young un's' on mobile phones 24 hours a day, 'talking' to people who likely live in the next street! No doubt the protestors who keep blocking the M25 in the name of 'climate change' coordinate themselves via their phones and social media.
Social media is not just bad for people it's bad for the planet. And not just in the wasteful cost of upgrading one's phone every two years to get a better camera, a bigger, brighter, higher resolution screen, or a new gimmick like folding screens - none of which most people actually need (which was the crux of the article I posted).
The real problem is the cost to the environment in building and operating the data centres that serve these social media tools. They might be trying to run them in a 'carbon neutral' way as far as power consumption goes, but that ignores the cost of building the site itself and it ignores the cost of building the equipment that goes in them. And that's without mentioning the hidden costs in mining the rare earth minerals that are so essential to modern electronic equipment (and batteries) - or the decommissioning costs.
My point in posting this was because of the absurdity of younger people lambasting my generation as damaging the planet, when through their mobile phones and social media use they're damaging the planet themselves! In the 1960's we though that the idea of 'fighting for peace' was absurd. The idea that 'social media is harmless' is equally absurd. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
My generation has nothing to be proud of about the way we lived and our impact on climate change, but back then we didn't know any better. Today we all know about climate change and that one of the biggest causes has been rampant consumerism. Yet even now, when we know what the problems are, the younger people will not change their habits to help. It's much easier, and far more comforting, to moan about how stupid us 'old un's' were and pretend that you're so much more enlightened - on social media of course.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Social media is pure evil no matter how you look at it.
Martinr36
MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Personally I think our generation was actually "greener" back then than today, with things such as:
Glass milk bottles that were returned to the dairy for reuse
Fizzy drink bottles were also returned to be reused (sometimes the same bottle was returned multiple times to get a bit of extra cash)
most food produce had very simple wrapping (a paper bag)
We used to walk the half mile to the local shops
Most families only had one car, if they had one at all
Mum grew all of our veg at home or on our allotment
At the age of 8 i used to walk 2 miles to school by myself to save my bus fare so i could spend it in the school tuck shop
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
So true.
I've just noticed, even Greta Thunberg is on Facebook. Talk about hypocrisy...!
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Martinr36
MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
So you are one of the folk to blame for the CO2 shortage................
🍺
Why is there a CO2 shortage and how will it hit food supplies?
The UK's food industry has been told it must pay five times more for carbon dioxide in future.
www.bbc.co.uk
Talking about Carbon Emissions is a pointless task until it's taken seriously that 72% of the entire planets global emissions are caused by 100 companies
This isn't a me you problem. Recycling is less than 1% of the battle but it's drummed into our heads that it's up to us to make the changes to save the planet. Meanwhile these same companies are the one's causing massive scale damage but no one speaks about it
We cant solve a problem if we cant tackle where the issue lies. It's not e-waste, it's gigantic container ships and massive city sized production facilities that are causing huge scale damage
This isn't a me you problem. Recycling is less than 1% of the battle but it's drummed into our heads that it's up to us to make the changes to save the planet. Meanwhile these same companies are the one's causing massive scale damage but no one speaks about it
We cant solve a problem if we cant tackle where the issue lies. It's not e-waste, it's gigantic container ships and massive city sized production facilities that are causing huge scale damage
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
But they're not the problem. The problem is the consumers who want the products made by those manufacturing plants and shipped around the world in those container ships.
As an example, you can buy 23kg bags of barbecue charcoal here at many outlets. Guess where these bags of charcoal come from?
Argentina.
How can it make sense to transport partly burnt wood halfway round the world?
So you are one of the folk to blame for the CO2 shortage................
Why is there a CO2 shortage and how will it hit food supplies?
The UK's food industry has been told it must pay five times more for carbon dioxide in future.www.bbc.co.uk
I don't do things by half 😇
Martinr36
MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
And think of the deforestation that is possibly caused by cutting the timber to make the charcoal from..........
I read an article some years back about the journey of a recycled plastic cup used in the production of material used to make fleece lined jackets jackets, one way or another it went on about 3 round trips to China and back to West before it ended up in a shop..............