A LEADING mobile phone network operator's circular economy strategy has led to over 1,557 tonnes of discarded devices being recycled or reused.
Vodafone Spain says it has saved approximately 520 tonnes of electronic waste per month from ending up in landfill so far in 2022 – mostly mobile phones, but also TV sets, computers, and electric skateboards.
Of the total, 81% of dumped devices were reused, and 19% recycled, Vodafone Spain confirms.
The company aims to recycle or reuse 100% of broken or unwanted appliances by the year 2025, and reveals that it already does so with 100% of mobile phones.
Around 5% of its handsets are recycled and the rest reused, keeping around 279 tonnes per month of mobile phones out of landfill sites.
It also means not having to mine for materials to manufacture new devices from scratch, which involves plundering the earth's resources and generating air-polluting emissions.
Concerning 'reusing' electronic waste, Vodafone explains that if a device is still more or less working but the owner decides to replace it with a more sophisticated or upgraded version, the company offers a discount on the price of a new one in exchange for the buyer handing in the old one.
This is then reconditioned and restored, and sold in emerging markets and the developing world at a much lower price than a brand-new model, making modern telecommunications technology more affordable in poorer countries.
Where a device part-exchanged against a new purchase is not working or has significant defects that make it impossible to restore, Vodafone sends it off to be dismantled, the parts which are still useable kept for manufacturing, and the materials that make up the rest – plastics, metals and minerals – go to recycling plants.
Here, they could then be made into any type of consumer goods – turned back into a mobile phone or similar, or become furniture, clothing, accessories, or disposable packaging suitable for future recycling.
Vodafone Spain has linked up with the Circular Electronics Partnership, an organisation seeking to connect up market leaders in the industry so they can pool recycling and reusing resources, and to promote the practice.
Also, Vodafone has signed up to Eco Rating, a quality-control scale which scores consumer goods on their environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes and helps buyers work out which mobile phones are the most sustainable when making purchase decisions.
Other 'circular economy' strategies Vodafone Spain has employed include manufacturing 'standard' or 'uniform' boxes or packaging, so that these can be used again and again for different phone models, rather than any left over having to be thrown away when a given device ceases to be made.
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