Recycle it: how to wisely say goodbye to your old gadget

Last week was International Mother Earth Day (naming is not ours, this is the UN). Taking this opportunity, we want to write about a question that has long been of concern to us - we wanted to talk about recycling old phones.



How quickly mezzanines, cabinets and shelves in the age of digital technology are overgrown with various technological antiques! You changed one phone to another, put off the old one just in case - and now, a few years later, no one needs it: neither relatives, nor friends, nor you, even customers on Avito pass by in bewilderment. In the best case, the device becomes an exhibit of the home museum of all kinds, and in the worst case, it goes to the basket.

According to studies, about 20% of SECOND-HAND mobile gadgets are resold for reuse, 40% are in eternal home storage and only 9% (according to a recent Microsoft study) are disposed of. The remaining share of devices, apparently, is trying to decompose in general landfills, making our planet a “sad panda”.

Of course, for most of you this is not a secret, but we still repeat: electronic devices contain various toxic substances. These substances pose a serious danger and, if disposed of in a landfill, lead to pollution of the atmosphere, soil and groundwater, and their decomposition period is tens and hundreds of years.

Did you know that, for example, Lumia smartphones can be 100% recycled? And the fact that more than 90% of the materials that make up all mobile phones can be reused?



As you can already understand from the video above, mobile devices contain a lot of valuable materials, for example, metals, such as copper, gold, zinc, beryllium. These metals can be recycled and reused in the electronics industry, or in the automotive industry, or maybe even jewelry.

Of course, plastic does not stand aside. This is generally the most easily recyclable material. Even battery components are reused - to produce new batteries.

A vivid example: in the course of this last year’s experiment, which you could watch on video, out of 43 old devices assembled in a house alone, more than 800 g of plastic, 600 g of iron, about 400 g of copper, 300 g of aluminum, about 160 g of magnesium, 340 g of lithium, and also a little gold - 1.4 g. According to calculations, reusing the extracted materials from 43 mobile phones, you can get 17.5 brand new Lumia smartphones.



Thus, the reuse of materials not only helps to conserve natural resources, but also reduces the energy costs of their extraction and primary processing. Those. solid pluses. The thing is small - to give up your old devices for recycling.

Everything is quite simple - you just need to find the nearest disposal site. They collect all the unnecessary equipment and take it to processing plants, where it is crushed in special millstones to fragments barely exceeding the size of coffee beans. Using different filtration technologies, materials for reuse are extracted from these grains. And toxic waste is disposed of at special landfills in accordance with the requirements for their disposal.

For example, some of the authorized Microsoft Lumia service centers will gladly accept your battered life, and, unfortunately, your mobile friend you no longer need. Addresses of centers in your city can be found here .

If your old “device” does not bear the proud Nokia / Microsoft banner, before going to the above center, we recommend that you make a test call in order to clarify all the details of receiving the device. Or you can use the map of recycling points “Second Life” from Greenpeace Russia.

Moreover, you can do the recycling for your own benefit. Network retailers like Eldorado are ready to accept your old device in exchange for discounts at their own stores. Good motivation, huh?

A similar program (albeit without discounts) is also available at MVideo . Despite the fact that such shares have dates, so far they are permanent.

Alternative

But, what if your old device is working properly and has not lost its external gloss yet? Or are you scared to even imagine how the large metal cutters will tear the once-favorite phone to pieces? B-r-r-r-r.

Well, in this case, you can do a good deed - give the old phone to those in need. Today, many cities in Russia have social service centers. In Moscow, they are called CCSCs and have a single format, in other cities in different ways. These centers work with pensioners, people with disabilities, large families and dysfunctional families. And almost all of them are ready to accept not only clothes and shoes, but also any oversized electrical equipment.

Also, in addition to the Central Church Administration, you can call the nearest religious organization (an Orthodox church, a mosque, a synagogue - it does not matter). Most of them also help those in need.

There is also the easiest way to transfer your smartphone in good hands - a veteran in the service of commodity-free relations, the website DaruDar . Only here you will have to come to terms with the fact that you will need to make a difficult choice which of the bidders the lot is the most needed.

By the way, this site, together with the Moscow government, is now conducting a charity event called “ Good Deed””, Designed to provide digital technology to socially vulnerable citizens. Muscovites who have unnecessary and unused equipment can transfer it to the poor directly through the DaruDara website. It can be not only mobile phones and smartphones, but also tablets, computers, e-books, printers or webcams.