Will green mobile phones truly catch on? Will greener manufacturing processes develop so that every mobile phone is made from recycled materials or plastic bags? Or is it just a well oiled fad in the history of mobile phone design.
I believe we are at the cusp of a new order, whereby the cost of looking for new resources from fields far away, could become so expensive that the digging for virgin raw materials for just a mobile phone could be outlawed; when the materials are so already readily available above ground. With the all round cost of cradle to grave production rising and what with the Earth beginning to look like a garden with a family of gophers let loose in it, the use of recycled materials looks a good economic and sustainable resource choice to me.
But just how feasible, would it be to produce a billion plus greener handsets from recycled plastics. Well in the UK alone we create 3 million tonnes of plastic waste a year, of which 56% is from waste packaging. Part of that amount comes the 17.5 billion plastic bags that are given away by supermarkets in the UK and as a nation we are increasing our plastic use by 4% a year! So the numbers are there.
Car manufacturers have to do it? They are legislated to look for new ways to reduce their environmental impact. So how long will it be before the manufacturers of music systems, TV