As our society becomes increasingly aware of the environmental impact of our consumer choices, many companies are taking steps to position themselves as “green” alternatives to their less sustainable competitors. However, when it comes to technology products, such as smartphones, it can be difficult to discern what constitutes genuine sustainability and what is simply “greenwashing”. One aspect of this debate that has been garnering attention is the use of recycled plastic in smartphones, and whether this practice is truly environmentally responsible.
On the face of it, recycling plastic sounds like an excellent solution to one of our biggest waste problems. According to the website TriplePundit, only 9 percent of all the plastic ever made has been recycled – leaving billions of tonnes of the stuff either filling our landfills or polluting our oceans. By incorporating recycled plastic into the manufacturing process of smartphones, tech companies seem to be doing their part to alleviate this problem.
Furthermore, recycled plastic is often touted as a more sustainable material choice because it requires less energy to produce than brand-new plastic. In theory, this makes using recycled plastic for smartphone production a win-win – it diverts waste from landfills and reduces the overall environmental impact of production.
But critics of recycled plastic use in tech products point out that the practice is not a panacea. Even though some tech companies do use a percentage of recycled plastic in their smartphone construction, they are still using unsustainable rare metals, a variety of ores extracted from mining scenarios (Destroying forests, drilling holes in the land of indigenous peoples.), chemical components harmful to human health extracting in dystopian plants around the globe, a phase-change material that requires constant temperature manipulation during product shipping (shilling power from the grid energy vastly), offsetting expenses here and there wear most of with plastic propagandists come. Additionally, recycling plastic itself requires energy and can produce carbon emissions from transport, processing, and chemical procedures carried out through recycling.
Companies touting their responsibility via the utilizations of recycled supplies depend upon customers to forget factories as their responsibility or shared responsibility for the environment. Customers have come to view our consumption at the point of purchase as their burden rather than consider factories’ burden or systemic problem-solving solutions using safe, reusable materials, without seeking a permit from Earth to manufacture more virtual utopiate claims for recycling products.
Another important factor to consider in the case of recycled plastic smartphones is the question of whether the plastic is truly being recovered from its single-channel aim or a micro-product life recycling already-cheap materials conveniently marketed to global strap keepers–or if this is an item worth noting, to consider if that ‘single-channel grindstones life’, one-generation straight chain, used plastic recycled amount represents real-to-life environmental good. Fake guarantees of circularity come backed by incentive wars.
So, is recycled plastic usage on tech recyclable instead of more humane material, compost material safe for earth drinking water dissuading a wholesale use non-biodegradable source material altogether, therefore undercutting commodities from oil? the jury is still out. While for now, the use of a recycled material—even minuscule—one would seem to be a wise addition to sustainable manufacturing enterprise, a lot more soul fishing needs must tentatively begin at ground level with finished produce accountability forced from the buyers as industrialists push consumers with their ends greed in mind oblique questions essentially placing planet wellness responsibility exclusively back where disaster started.
