Your next smartphone: new, used or refurbished?

in livesustainably •  6 years ago  (edited)

Buying the latest trendy smartphone every year is of course anything but sustainable, but what are sustainable choices when purchasing your next smartphone?

I focused on the impact of smartphones, the differences between brands, second-hand and refurbished phones.


itpulse.com.ng

What if my phone needs to be replaced?

Recently I dropped it again. My second-hand iPhone 4S is now quite old and has some cures, but I would rather not miss it anyway. Fortunately he did it! He has also gotten a new screen and could use one again (as the attentive reader may have spotted before). But what if he really can not be repaired again?

Do I buy a new phone from the big brands? A cheap thing from a vague brand? A fair telephone? A second-hand or perhaps a refurbished telephone? And how do I choose? Let me already compare the options now that it is not in a hurry.


finder.com.au

Impact of phones

Apart from eating meat and air travel, a wealthy westerner, especially when buying stuff, makes a huge impact on the environment. Raw materials come from all over the world, factories produce literally and figuratively on the conveyor belt and our oceans are littered with thousands of seriously polluting container ships that bring us all that stuff continuously.

Of all those items, electronic devices are the biggest polluters and, in general, the more complicated the device, the more polluting. So if you think twice or you will buy a new chair, you should think twice about a new vacuum cleaner and at least four times about a new laptop or smartphone. In that respect you can better choose a dumbphone than a smartphone.

Your smartphone is packed with electronics. On the printed circuit boards are all kinds of rare metals that are mined from mines. That the production of a smartphone has so much impact on the environment is mainly because these mines are extremely polluting.
Entire areas are being excavated, groundwater is being polluted and the local population is often more annoyed than they benefit from the profits.

The fact that you have to leave your charger in the wall socket is completely out of the question. In fact, in contrast to a fairly simple but energy-guzzling washing machine, even the total energy consumption of a smartphone does not fall short of the impact of production.


technologieblog.info

It is therefore of the utmost importance that complex devices such as smartphones and laptops last as long as possible. Take care of it and in case of defects always repair or upgrade rather than replace it. In addition, there are quite a few differences between brands in how sustainable and fair their phones are produced.

I found my inspiration on : zaailingen.com

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One thing that is not mentioned is that smartphone companies sometimes stop updating the operating system(google) after 3 years. Then the phone is insecure and your forced to update far earlier that you really need to.