Dispose of it: how to say goodbye to your old gadget

Last week, the International Mother Earth Day was held (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 digital age are overgrown with various technological antiques! You changed one phone to another, put off the old one just in case - and now, after a few years, no one needs it anymore: neither relatives, nor friends, nor you, even the customers on Avito pass by in bewilderment. At best, the device becomes an exhibit of the house museum of all sorts of things, and at worst, it goes to the basket.

According to research, about 20% of used mobile gadgets are resold for reuse, 40% are in perpetual household storage and only 9% (according to a recent Microsoft study) are recycled. The remaining share of the devices, apparently, is trying to decompose in common landfills, making our planet a "sad panda."
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Of course, for most of you it is not a secret, but we still repeat: electronic devices contain various toxic substances. These substances pose a serious danger and, if released at a landfill, lead to pollution of the atmosphere, soil and groundwater, and the period of their decomposition is tens and hundreds of years.

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



As you could 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 used again in the production of electronics, or in the automotive industry, and maybe even the jewelry industry.

Of course, the plastic does not stand aside. It is generally the most easily recyclable material. Even battery components are reused - for the production of new batteries.

A vivid example: in the course of this last year’s experiment, which you could watch on video, from 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 some gold - 1.4 g. As the calculations showed, 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 preserve natural resources, but also reduces energy costs for their extraction and primary processing. Those. solid pluses. Things are easy - to give their old devices for recycling.

Everything is quite simple - you just need to find the nearest recycling point. They collect all the unnecessary equipment and take it to processing plants, where it is crushed in special millstones to fragments that are barely larger than the size of the coffee bean. With the help of various filtration technologies, materials for recycling are separated 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 life battered, and, unfortunately, mobile friend you no longer need. Addresses of centers in your city can be found at this link .

If your old “device” does not carry the proud banner of Nokia / Microsoft, before going to the center mentioned above, we recommend making a test call in order to clarify all the details of the device reception. Alternatively, you can use the map of the Second Life Recycling Facilities from Greenpeace Russia.

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

A similar program (albeit without discounts) is also available for MVideo . Despite the fact that such actions have dates, as long as they are permanent.

Alternative

But, what if your old device is working properly and has not yet lost external gloss? Or are you afraid to even imagine how big metal incisors will tear the once beloved phone into pieces? B-rr-r.

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

Also, besides the center, you can call the religious organization nearest you (an Orthodox church, a mosque, a synagogue doesn’t matter). Most of them also provide assistance to those in need.

There is the easiest way to transfer your smartphone in good hands - a veteran in the service of commodity-gratuitous relations, the site DaruDar . Only here you will have to come to terms with the fact that you will have to make a difficult choice, which of the applicants will need the exposed lot.

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