The article calls it an "estimate, based on global trade data". It links to neither the data nor how the estimate was made.
It does say the estimate was given by "the international waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) forum" - perhaps someone has an institutional interest in that number being high.
I agree. According to data compiled by Statista, there are 15 billion smartphones in existence right now, and "only" 1.5 billion sold per year. So by next year, we're going to have 30% fewer devices?
From googling: “The worldwide mobile phone market 1,655.7 million units shipped in 2021”, “Global smartphone market 1.39 billion units in 2021”, “In 2021, the number of mobile devices operating worldwide stood at almost 15 billion”. I couldn’t find feature-phone production numbers split out - but poorer people won’t replace phones unless they have to so smart-phone waste is more likely to be relevant.
Lots of people retire a phone a year, many more after 2, but these phone tend to be resold as refurbs, and not even close to 5billion people own their own phone at all.
Honestly, I find it really hard to get worked up about cell phone e-waste in the grand scheme of environmental issues.
People seem to confuse the cost of something new with the harm in throwing it away -- they get upset about $250 AirPods not getting recycled, while they don't give a second thought to throwing away a couple pairs of $1 AAA batteries, when it's about the same level of landfill impact.
Or in this case, they think there's something wrong with throwing away a 5 oz (140 g) cell phone, but don't feel particularly bad when they finally dispose of an old 50 lb (22 kg) air conditioner -- or a 3,000 lb (1,360 kg) car. (Using these numbers, one car is the same mass of material as almost 10,000 phones.)
Putting it into perspective, cell phones are nothing. There's more glass used to make a jar of peanut butter, and you throw away more plastic after a family-sized Chinese takeout meal.
And yes if there are precious metals inside that can be recovered, then let's recover those -- but only if it's economical. Because that's a pure question of economics. We don't need to be "virtuous" -- if markets really think the metal is going to be that valuable because we're going to run out, then they will pay you accordingly handsomely for your old broken phones. But it doesn't seem like we've reached that point yet, because nobody's paying anything.
Yeah, the article isn't great, talking about hazardous substances and such.
Phones are moving to "chip scale" components: resistors, inductors, capacitors less than 0.25mm in size. And the chips themselves are getting smaller and smaller. The quantity of "hazardous" stuff outside of the battery is plummeting.
Making the battery removable and replaceable and having fully-reticulated battery collection networks would be nice.
On cost, though: there is the concept of "embodied energy". The AirPods cost $250 while the peanut butter jar costs less than $1, in part because a lot of energy is used to make the small components in the AirPods. (Not corresponding to the price difference, of course, but more energy.) Lots more steps in the production chain of AirPods, each with their own energy losses.
So buying new AirPods does have a bigger environmental impact than buying a peanut butter jar.
> you throw away more plastic after a family-sized Chinese takeout meal.
Flying from one side of the country to the other and back uses more carbon than several years' worth of Chinese takeout containers.
Would be interesting to have a breakdown of why the AirPods cost so much. I suspect a large chunk of it is research and development. As well as the wages of the top talent in the world required to develop and manufacture them.
A jar is a mostly once off cost, you build the jar making machine and it works until it breaks. While AirPods are under constant innovation. So the initial cost has to be repaid fast.
Yeah but what about the resources that go into making a phone? The phone is just the end result of a long line of processes that create waste. So while the phone may be much smaller in size, "throwing it away" could result in a larger impact to the environment than it may seem.
EPA has done a good job quantifying this with their WARM standards. We think of recycling impact by the ton and recycling a ton of phones is an order of magnitude better than recycling cars, and reusing/refurbishing phones is multiple orders of magnitude better
going on your estimate of 140g, 5 billion phones is 700,000 metric tonnes. that is an insane amount of waste, and not to be sniffed at
besides this, phones are also massively more complex than a glass jar, and much more often replaced than a car or air conditioner
there are genuine malevolent economic factors at play here. these companies want you to get a new phone and throw away your old one, so they can extract more wealth from you. and they have admitted to acting in ways that encourage this
No, 700,000 metric tons per year globally is nothing and we aren’t manufacturing 5 billion phones a year so we aren’t throwing that many away per year. We have more waste from TV remote batteries and nobody singles them out.
As to lifespan, in a lifetime I might have say 20 cellphones and 4 cars but that’s nowhere close to being equivalent waste or environmental impact.
It's just that my car has given me 15 years of service and will, I expect, give me ten more. Many large household appliances can last even longer than that. Meanwhile, my phone is only two years old, looks and works perfectly fine, but no longer receives security updates.
I just posted an "Ask HN" on Thursday about how to handle this, because it feels ridiculous to replace the phone at this point, but the alternative options seem to suck too. It just seems like there's so much room to improve the situation.
You're right about the economics, though. I remember filling out a form on the Best Buy website to see what they'd pay me to recycle a three year-old laptop, and it quoted me $5... So clearly whatever can be recycled from these machines isn't all that valuable.
What you're describing is called economism and is the reason we're in this mess. Preservation of the environment can not be reduced to an economic calculation.
To me this seems to be a case of whataboutism. Just because there are worse things to do environmentally speaking does not mean that this is not a problem.
Actually, from an economic perspective, you should tackle the lowest hanging fruit. Assuming we can only tackle a non-unlimited amount of issues at any given time.
I'm assuming this article hits the dopamine because everyone has a phone, and it's a very personal item and everyone upgrades / replaces them eventually. A window A/C on the other hand, not so much.
Recycling and buying renewed or refurbished phones is good, but the fact that many phones are unsupported after three or sometimes even two years is a problem.
Qualcomm has been a big culprit in this for many years now. They refuse to support their chipsets for too long, because they can reduce expenses not having to maintain them, and more importantly they make more money selling more chipsets to manufacturers.
Yeah Qualcomm has literally become a global environmental and sustainability scourge and it has honestly been a factor in switching away from their products as much as is possible given their modem monopoly. The competition isn’t much better but it IS better.
The thing is I can make that choice but for many people the cellphones they can afford are mediatek and Qualcomm. This lack of support doesn’t truly save money it just cost shifts from a wealthy corporation to the global poor.
there ought to be a law where if hardware is bound to software, and the software goes out of support in a way that renders the hardware useless, then it must be open sourced.
notably post qualcomm pixel phones from google have five years of guaranteed updates. (pixel 6 and above)
apple seems to also do a good job of keeping up software updates for many years. (8+ for some iphones iirc)
I would even be happy to see required labeling for how long a product will be supported for. Just like we have energy usage guides, mass or volume listed and nutrition labels it should be mandated to label how long a product is supported for. If Cloud services are shut down or security vulnerabilities are unpatched in that timeframe you have to give full refunds/recalls and/or get slapped with significant fines.
It is getting better with companies doing this voluntarily (at least the companies that do an ok job with support) but standardized labeling and required promenance would be invaluable.
> Qualcomm has been a big culprit in this for many years now. They refuse to support their chipsets for too long, because they can reduce expenses not having to maintain them, and more importantly they make more money selling more chipsets to manufacturers.
In the past I've seen that argument a lot when it comes to Google's Pixel phones. But nowadays Google uses their own chips, yet a new Pixel 7 that you buy today will still only get guaranteed major Android version upgrades until 2025.
We need modular phones like the frame.work laptop. This is possible with some limitations, but Apple and others will not make as much money. Battery replacement is a no brainer, but why can't the camera and other components be a module to remove and replace when a new one is released?
I bought a certified refurbished phone recently that works as good as new (with a new battery) but is cheaper than a new phone. Even has a new IMEI. The side effect is it's better for the environment. https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/certified-re-newed-ph...
Part of the problem is the ability to get a new battery for an older device. I was happy with my 4 year old phone, but needed a new battery. The only ones for sale had the same date of manufacture as mine and all the reviews said they were barely better than their old battery. It kills me that something so small and inexpensive as the battery was the reason I had to find a new phone.
Not to get too far off topic, but it sounds like this is going to be an issue with EVs too - I hope not.
At least with EVs there will be enough financial incentive for a 3rd party battery market. For phones it doesn't make sense to perform surgery to replace a battery, but for cars the savings will be worth it.
I've only ever thrown away phones for two reasons:
1. Part of the phone (e.g., the battery, charging port, or screen) stopped working, and getting it repaired either was impossible or cost as much as buying a new phone did.
2. The manufacturer stopped releasing software updates, and due to things like SafetyNet, locked bootloaders, or lack of open-source drivers, nobody else could step up to do so.
If both of those problems went away, I can see myself using the same phone for a decade or more.
I think battery is the major problem. I had a s6 and I wasn't able to replace it battery. And, I had to dump it after only 3 years of purchase. Personally speaking, companies must be forced to provide official battery for at least 5 years.
Readit News
It does say the estimate was given by "the international waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) forum" - perhaps someone has an institutional interest in that number being high.
Hard to believe.
https://www.zippia.com/advice/us-smartphone-industry-statist...
I don't know of any person who retires one phone every year.
Also, a lot of phones get second life, being usually passed within families or sold used.
People seem to confuse the cost of something new with the harm in throwing it away -- they get upset about $250 AirPods not getting recycled, while they don't give a second thought to throwing away a couple pairs of $1 AAA batteries, when it's about the same level of landfill impact.
Or in this case, they think there's something wrong with throwing away a 5 oz (140 g) cell phone, but don't feel particularly bad when they finally dispose of an old 50 lb (22 kg) air conditioner -- or a 3,000 lb (1,360 kg) car. (Using these numbers, one car is the same mass of material as almost 10,000 phones.)
Putting it into perspective, cell phones are nothing. There's more glass used to make a jar of peanut butter, and you throw away more plastic after a family-sized Chinese takeout meal.
And yes if there are precious metals inside that can be recovered, then let's recover those -- but only if it's economical. Because that's a pure question of economics. We don't need to be "virtuous" -- if markets really think the metal is going to be that valuable because we're going to run out, then they will pay you accordingly handsomely for your old broken phones. But it doesn't seem like we've reached that point yet, because nobody's paying anything.
Phones are moving to "chip scale" components: resistors, inductors, capacitors less than 0.25mm in size. And the chips themselves are getting smaller and smaller. The quantity of "hazardous" stuff outside of the battery is plummeting.
Making the battery removable and replaceable and having fully-reticulated battery collection networks would be nice.
On cost, though: there is the concept of "embodied energy". The AirPods cost $250 while the peanut butter jar costs less than $1, in part because a lot of energy is used to make the small components in the AirPods. (Not corresponding to the price difference, of course, but more energy.) Lots more steps in the production chain of AirPods, each with their own energy losses.
So buying new AirPods does have a bigger environmental impact than buying a peanut butter jar.
> you throw away more plastic after a family-sized Chinese takeout meal.
Flying from one side of the country to the other and back uses more carbon than several years' worth of Chinese takeout containers.
A jar is a mostly once off cost, you build the jar making machine and it works until it breaks. While AirPods are under constant innovation. So the initial cost has to be repaid fast.
Dead Comment
going on your estimate of 140g, 5 billion phones is 700,000 metric tonnes. that is an insane amount of waste, and not to be sniffed at
besides this, phones are also massively more complex than a glass jar, and much more often replaced than a car or air conditioner
there are genuine malevolent economic factors at play here. these companies want you to get a new phone and throw away your old one, so they can extract more wealth from you. and they have admitted to acting in ways that encourage this
As to lifespan, in a lifetime I might have say 20 cellphones and 4 cars but that’s nowhere close to being equivalent waste or environmental impact.
You can use this logic to justify just about anything, because 5 billion multiplied by anything is going to get a huge number.
I just posted an "Ask HN" on Thursday about how to handle this, because it feels ridiculous to replace the phone at this point, but the alternative options seem to suck too. It just seems like there's so much room to improve the situation.
You're right about the economics, though. I remember filling out a form on the Best Buy website to see what they'd pay me to recycle a three year-old laptop, and it quoted me $5... So clearly whatever can be recycled from these machines isn't all that valuable.
Deleted Comment
I'm assuming this article hits the dopamine because everyone has a phone, and it's a very personal item and everyone upgrades / replaces them eventually. A window A/C on the other hand, not so much.
To equate the two is idiocy.
Qualcomm has been a big culprit in this for many years now. They refuse to support their chipsets for too long, because they can reduce expenses not having to maintain them, and more importantly they make more money selling more chipsets to manufacturers.
The thing is I can make that choice but for many people the cellphones they can afford are mediatek and Qualcomm. This lack of support doesn’t truly save money it just cost shifts from a wealthy corporation to the global poor.
there ought to be a law where if hardware is bound to software, and the software goes out of support in a way that renders the hardware useless, then it must be open sourced.
notably post qualcomm pixel phones from google have five years of guaranteed updates. (pixel 6 and above)
apple seems to also do a good job of keeping up software updates for many years. (8+ for some iphones iirc)
It is getting better with companies doing this voluntarily (at least the companies that do an ok job with support) but standardized labeling and required promenance would be invaluable.
5 years of security updates. Still only 3 years of guaranteed Android version upgrades: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705
In the past I've seen that argument a lot when it comes to Google's Pixel phones. But nowadays Google uses their own chips, yet a new Pixel 7 that you buy today will still only get guaranteed major Android version upgrades until 2025.
> There are an estimated 16 billion mobile phones worldwide - and in Europe, almost a third are no longer in use.
So that's 5B total, not in 2022.
Then the article goes on to conflate "hoarded at home" from "trashed".
To be clear 1.35B mobile phones shipped in 2021. That makes the problem (with a 3 year replacement) about 10x smaller than described.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/samsung-led-smartphone-ship...
If you'll take that liberty with a headline, why should I trust the rest of the reporting? There's a problem, but not what is described.
The article cites WEEE forum, but taking a look at a WEEE forum blog post on the topic [0], it says:
> Experts expect roughly 5.3 billion mobile / smartphones will drop out of use this year.
Who are these experts? Where are these numbers coming from? Maybe I'm missing it, but no one is cited for the stat.
[0] https://weee-forum.org/ws_news/of-16-billion-mobile-phones-p...
I bought a certified refurbished phone recently that works as good as new (with a new battery) but is cheaper than a new phone. Even has a new IMEI. The side effect is it's better for the environment. https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/certified-re-newed-ph...
Not to get too far off topic, but it sounds like this is going to be an issue with EVs too - I hope not.
Once you stop getting security updates, it’s game over even if the hardware is still usable.
I've always considered the whole "but the security!!!1" to be another form of planned-obolescence propaganda.
1. Part of the phone (e.g., the battery, charging port, or screen) stopped working, and getting it repaired either was impossible or cost as much as buying a new phone did.
2. The manufacturer stopped releasing software updates, and due to things like SafetyNet, locked bootloaders, or lack of open-source drivers, nobody else could step up to do so.
If both of those problems went away, I can see myself using the same phone for a decade or more.