Many of us have faced a situation where we drop our phones, crack a screen, or experience a general malfunction. What do you do in this situation?
With almost 1.4 billion smartphones sold worldwide annually over the past 5 years, you can see how common mobile phone damage could be. On top of this in America alone, over 150 million mobile phones are discarded each year, these can output a sum of 17 tonnes of copper and 0.3 tonnes of silver per device recovered. accumulated this adds up to 2550 tonnes of copper and 45 tonnes of silver. (Wikipedia, Statista)
With such ridiculous wastes and scenarios, what should you do next?
1. Know the extent of the Damage:
Whether you plan to throw, sell, or recycle your phone the primary objective is to assess the damage that has been done. Knowing whether the damage is external or internal and whether it can be repaired.
Critically analyze and note down the exact issues with your product. Now if you are under a warranty or guarantee of any sort, check if the damage that has occurred falls under the damages that are warrantied against.
If it is so, the company issued with, whether it be for physical or software damage might be able to give you an immediate replacement saving you money and effort.
This is why it remains of urgent importance to keep your warrantee cards and other documents of purchase handy at all times to ensure a fast and efficient replacement.
If you are unable to determine the cause of the problem you can always call the company or agency.
2. External repair:
If your device is damaged and you don’t want to replace it either for the money or how recently you bought it, you could always have it repaired. In most countries there exist brand associated repair agencies as well as private repair agencies that will replace faulty parts of your phone at a price.
This might not always be a cheaper alternative, especially if your device is damaged internally. Certain processes like battery and screen replacement might be a lot easier than others.
You may also ask for company support if you wish to extract some important information from a device that was damaged.
This will be a fast and efficient way to take care of any quick data collection or shifting to a new device.
3. Selling your phone:
A lot of mobile phone resellers and buyers exist. As mentioned earlier, phones are rich in components, and most expensive phones can be bought and restored at a low cost hence being reusable. This will help significantly reduce the overall phone sales throughout the world thus reducing the increased carbon footprint that could have been caused by producing these phones.
Phone buyers will offer you rather fantastic prices for your phones. With such ridiculous deals, it is almost impossible to say no. Choosing to sell and trade-in your phone online can profit you a lot more than simply disposing of it.
4. Throwing your phone or giving it away:
If you don’t want to sell your device you could always choose to give it away. This is another way for you to continue the reusing of your device, thus ensuring that you do your duty to protect the environment. This, however, can only be done with working phones and is not an option when it comes to damaged phones.
If you choose to simply throw away your phone, you are making a big mistake to both the environment and your potential profits. You end up losing a lot of money you could have had and the perfectly profitable device goes waste, so stay away from such a method unless you are left with no other choice.
With the mobile phone industry more or less dominating today’s market, one must be careful to avoid damaging the environment anymore as well as avoiding any unnecessary consumerism in the process. Remember to check your warranties, external repair options, selling your device, and donating it before you consider throwing it in the trash.
Be the change you wish to see in the world today and start off by saving the planet.
0 Comments