The GSM Association (GSMA) and a dozen carriers have announced a plan to make a modest dent in the number of mobile phones that languish, unused, unloved, and unrecycled.
The consortium proclaimed on Tuesday that five billion mobile phones are “currently sitting unused and unloved in desk drawers around the globe”.
What is the incentive for me to haul them out and hand them over?
Only you know that.
given that hauling new metals out of the ground and refining them is a messy and energy-intensive business.
Still easier than dismantling a phone. That’s why we’re in this position. I was vaguely involved in some research looking at this, and to be economically viable (this was several years ago, so hopefully things are improving), you had about 30 seconds per phone to reclaim the valuable stuff before it cost less to mine it. You can barely get the cover open in that time.
Everything is economically unviable until the day that it is. Years ago someone I knew used to collect used photographic developer/fix from film labs for no charge. He had a warehouse full of it. One day it became viable to recover the silver from the dev fluid and he was set up for life.
