5bn phones to be fcuked into the bin this year

ewaste is a worldwide disgrace to put it mildly.

But it’s not going to be 5bn phones all binned in unison the moment apple or Samsung open the doors when a new product launches. That would be ludicrous & if that happened every year we’d all be fcuked long ago.

Obviously that doesn’t happen anyway cos most people will try and sell the phone, if they’ve the patience. Then there’s the likes of CeX for the less patient but willing to get 30-40% less for their phone.

In fact the larger cause of e waste is manufacturers fault. Charging customers absolutely ridiculous prices to repair. Apple for example charges €280~ to repair the screen for my iPhone 12 if I smash it. Now on adverts I can buy a used (including refurbished) for circa €450. under €200 more than repairing my phone, so I’m inpatient or can’t be without a phone so I decide, feck it I’ll just buy another.

Or for another few quid I could upgrade to an iPhone 13, either way, phone in the bin. It’s broken I can’t sell it and apple make it nearly impossible to buy OEM replacement parts. Could use a third party screen, but, get this, now if you do that.. the phone never stops telling you about it!

There’s so many fixable things that manufactures make difficult or we just feel are not worth doing that ewaste has become the easy answer.

like my car is 2003, nearly 20. I paid €500. The clutch went recently, just under that cost to replace it. I was being told by many just to scrap it.. why!? A perfectly fine car, with not a thing but a clutch gone, but scrap it cos it’s old and the “sale value” is not worth fixing it. But it’s no problem to have it scrapped when it functions perfect, just cos something happened and it’s old.

So it’s caused by numerous factors in my opinion, not just limited to folks who want shiny new things. Manufacturers & our own attitudes towards perceived value & how we have become accustomed to break, bin, replace. I suppose it might be due, at least in part, to the incredible wealth almost all of us experience in modern times compared to our parents/grandparents & how “consumable” things have gotten.

I suppose we’re more than just consumers while we shop— the products we buy are now almost entirely consumable. To be used (and potentially abused), just to be binned and replaced with a new shiny thing when it’s more convenient.

I’ve always seen my grandad for example capable to fix anything. But it’s not some mad gift he has it’s how life was for him. If something broke you fixed it or you didn’t have it. That was it. Ewaste is a problem born of the shift from that mindset, to as I said, technology becoming a consumable product & also manufacturers fencing off access to parts, documents and etc to repair things, either ourselves, or independent repair shops.

But what’s hilarious to me, honestly, is Apple for example will operate here no problem, but refuses to open any proper Apple Stores with the “Genius Bar”. One easy solution that wouldn’t even infringe on their refusal to help us help ourselves, but that’s even too much. I find that personally a glaring insight into how none of them can be bothered to address the Ewaste problem they add to daily.

In all there’s no crazy ewaste problem born simply from yearly phone cycles or bill pay contracts, they don’t help but they have other cynical plans in mind when they’re being discussed at board meetings, ewaste I doubt even comes to mind when they’re foaming at the mouth about all the money they’ll make.