Mobile Phones - the Future's Brighter, the Future's Green!

When it comes to purchasing a new mobile, one of the last things people take into consideration is how eco-friendly a prospective handset will be.

With the ever increasing interest in environmental friendly products though, many consumers are now beginning to question the impact their handsets’ are having on the environment, and the changes that can be made to help lessen this problem.

The movement towards “greener” handsets though is proving a considerably slow one. This is because a great majority of the responsibility of making handsets more environmentally friendly lies with the manufactures and carriers, who, being very large corporations are not accustomed to making rapid changes.

A further problem lies with the end user, the consumer – if they do not express a desire for a greener phone then manufactures simply will not invest their time and resources in developing them.

As mentioned, manufactures are the major player when it comes to making the shift to greener phones. Some of the biggest areas they are working on are their choices’ of materials and making their handset’s more energy efficient. For instance, all handsets cannot be disposed of in normal household waste, because of the toxic materials used to make them. There are however, alternatives to these and a few major manufactures are experimenting with such materials.

There is a wealth of options manufactures can implement to make their phones more efficient, some as simple as giving users more control of standby time and screen brightness control.

Some overhauls that both manufactures and carriers can incorporate are to; use less packaging and to move towards green company practices. With regards to packaging, companies could simply use less and ensure if not all but the majority of the materials used are recycle.

Lastly, it is down to us, the end users – not only can we help drive manufactures to making more eco-friendly phones, but we can take some very simple steps to ensure we are doing our part. A quick list of these has been outlined below -

• Educate yourself on greener practices through manufactures websites, and support the efforts they are working towards


• Opt for paperless billing, if you have access to the internet, then there’s no reason not too!


• Make sure you recycle any old mobile phones


• Try to avoid updating your handset every few months; mobile phones have a long lifespan so there’s no need to update them that often. If you do however, then have a look online, where you’re bound to find the best mobile phones deals.