• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Sklar is a second-year communications studies student.  

By Jason Sklar

Ever wonder what happened to those massive 1980s portable phones? Or what about those old car phones installed under your arm rest? Nowadays, it seems that cell phones are becoming so small it’s easy to misplace them. No worries. If you can’t find your phone, just buy another one. This seems to be the attitude of every other wireless information swapper these days.

In the next three years, Americans will discard approximately 130 million cell phones, creating 65,000 new tons of trash, according to Inform, an environmental research organization. And this is not just any trash. This gilded garbage contains the latest toxic metals and is chock-full of harmful pollutants.

The study found that by 2005, there will be 200 million cell phone subscribers in America. With all these new users and faithful wireless warriors, cell phone waste raises environmental concern.

“Because these devices are so small, their environmental impacts might appear to be minimal,” says Bette Fishbein, the researcher who authored the report. However, she believes the climb in the number of cell phone users is so quick and colossal “that the environmental and public health impacts of the waste they create are a significant concern.”

The persistent mobile upswing will leave about 500 million dilapidated mobile phones to be stockpiled. If you want to be comforted about cell phone waste, just ask the corporate executives behind the Nokia and Motorola operations. Surely they’ll be eager to share how cell phone toxins provide arsenic-rich drinking water, cultivate the soil with antimony, cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc, and flood the air with beryllium and nickel. Ingestion or exposure to significant amounts of any one of these toxic chemicals can put you at a greater risk for cancer, gastrointestinal and lung disease. That’s not to say that toxic waste dumps, nuclear power plants and oil refineries do not already emit harmful levels of pollutants, because they do. But the danger in wireless waste is that most people do not even know the environmental ramifications of excessive cell phone purchases.

When we realized that we could recycle aluminum cans, bottles and newspapers, we decided not to abandon products with those materials, and instead threw them in colorful plastic bins. Likewise, there is no way that wireless communicators would be willing to give up their cell phone companions. The study by Inform said that on average a cellular telephone is kept only 18 months, and in many cases thrown into a closet or drawer and finally discarded with the household garbage.

Environmentalists have already suggested starting “donate-a-phone” programs to collect old cell phones and dole them out to charities and developing countries. This is a fantastic solution except for one thing – this program has about the same degree of popularity as skinny-dipping in Antarctica. Only three states have made arrangements for legislation so far, and it doesn’t look like too many other states are aching to jump on the recycle-cell bandwagon. And even when cell phones are disposed of properly, they will eventually end up in toxic waste dumps where they contaminate the environment.

Without the development of “take-back” programs that allow phones and their batteries to be recycled, America’s wireless trash troubles will continue to escalate. While most wireless talkers are connected at the hip to their phones, it is time to reconsider buying the latest model. Hold off on that trip to Radio Shack or Circuit City until your phone actually ceases to function. Just because your neighbor has a cell phone three millimeters shorter with an e-mail function, it doesn’t mean you can’t make do with your pocket-sized mobile for a couple more years. Americans must begin to reevaluate their purchasing practices and start thinking about the repercussions of killing off cell phone after cell phone.

In Australia, the government has already instituted a nationwide cell phone program and the European Union is considering actions to make manufacturers responsible for setting up a recycling program. It’s time for America’s wireless corporations to start playing catch-up. But is it solely the manufacturer’s responsibility to repair the environment? Both producers and consumers can take credit for the environmental destruction. Mobile users can start helping the environment by cutting back on their consumption of cellular products. But for a decline in cell phone purchases to occur, manufacturers must make the wireless talker more aware of how those old phones just lying around the house can be hazardous to his health.

Additionally, cell phone recycling programs need to be more available and better advertised. If cell phone companies are going to require a new phone every time a consumer decides to upgrade his service, then they had better start providing a disposal service for the old ones.

There is no reason that your mobile phone needs to be replaced every year and a half. Start reusing, reducing, and at the very least, stop buying. While you may feel that your trashed cell phone poses no environmental threat, keep in mind that that is what everyone else is thinking as well.