A New Study Has Showed That Over 5 Billion Phones Are Going To Be Thrown Away In 2022 Even When They Can Be Used For A Bigger Cause

A recent study has shown that in the year 2022, about 5 Billion phones will be thrown away for multiple reasons. If we put these phones on top of one another, we will get a 30,000 miles long tower which is larger than the distance of the International Space Station from Earth and about an eighth of the distance to the moon. This research was conducted from June to September by Waste Electrical And Electronic Equipment Forum (WEEE) and they found out that out of 8,775 households in six countries, every household owns an average of 74 electronic products. These electronic products include mobile phones, laptops, tablets, toasters, microwaves, etc.

Out of these 74 devices, only 13 on average are being used regularly, nine of them are unused and about four of them are broken. Keep in mind that this data is only from the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Romania, Portugal, and Lebanon. If we gather the devices like mobile phones, toasters, electric toothbrushes, etc. that are in everyday use by people in these countries, they will weigh about 24.5 million tons, which is four times heavier than the Great Pyramid of Giza. These items make up 8% of the e-waste that is thrown into the garbage every day until all the land gets filled.

Magdalena Charytanowicz of WEEE says that the electronic devices that people throw away in the garbage can be used to remake more electronic and electrical devices. This will not only help in making the world a sustainable place but also reduce the carbon level in the environment to a great extent. But many people also hoard their phones. A large population says that they may have to use them in the future. 15% want to sell them and 13% have an emotional attachment to them.

On the occasion of E-Waste Day, WEEE invited many organizations to work on preventing people from disposing of electronic and electrical devices. These devices can be used for bigger causes like wind turbines, electric car batteries, etc. To make people give their devices to organizations working on E-Waste, collection boxes in supermarkets and other public spots is the right way and WEEE is surely working on it.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World