PARIS — Around the world, 1.5 billion are sold each year, but at what cost to the environment? From mineral extraction to their end of life, smartphones have ecological impacts at each manufacturing stage.
Accused of destroying ecosystems and contributing to the pollution of the planet, the production of this small object is also often bad for human rights.
“Like all digital devices, it is during its manufacturing that the smartphone emits the majority of its environmental impact,” explains Laurence Allard, a lecturer in communication sciences and a researcher at Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle University. In 2022, she edited “Smartphone Ecologies” which discusses all the ethical and ecological tensions that come with our mobile phones.
“Not only does the smartphone require the extraction of a certain number of raw materials, it also requires infrastructure and water. All of this is extremely energy-intensive, both from an ecological and human point of view,” continues the researcher. She highlights mining extraction as a particularly major problem. While landline telephones in the 1950s used just a dozen metals, our smartphones have increased the figure to around 50.
Among them, copper or aluminum are ‘ordinary’ metals, although their extraction requires a critical energy infrastructure, Allard reminds us. But others, like tantalum or indium, are rare or strategic metals. Powerful even in small quantities, they are what made it possible to reduce the size of the smartphone to fit it in our pockets.
“Certain metals are called ‘rare’ because they are part of a geopolitical monopoly, like gold,” explains the researcher. “Tantalum [a so-called “strategic” metal] is presented this way because it has an extremely low recycling rate.”
The manufacture of smartphones requires more energy and water as the devices are constantly renewed. In comparison, a large television also requires a lot of material, but it is renewed less often. According to Ademe figures, 80% of the telephone’s environmental footprint is due to its manufacturing, and 20% to its use.
But the issue of metals is also sensitive because of the human imprint it leaves behind. According to Unicef, around 40,000 children work in mines in the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “The working conditions of workers are worthy of neo-slavery,” emphasizes Allard. “Most of the geographical areas concerned are former colonies.”
In 2017, a report established by France Nature Environnement affirmed that “the extraction and trade of tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold fuel instability in the DRC, in the African Great Lakes region, but also in Central America and Burma. Coming from conflict zones, these minerals are now known as “blood minerals,” the report noted.
“Generally speaking, it is the entire ecosystem that is affected” adds Allard. Not only is the situation problematic for humans, but there are also issues regarding biodiversity and deforestation.”
In Brazil, indigenous people and thousands of hectares of forests are threatened by gold or copper extraction. In Argentina, lithium production requires so much water that it regularly causes usage conflicts with local populations. On Bangkok Island, Indonesia, cassiterite mining has led to the disappearance of 70% of coral reefs, forcing inhabitants to leave.
A difficult object to recycle
Laborious to produce, our mobile phones are even more difficult to reuse. “At the end of its life, the smartphone causes a large amount of electronic and electrical waste,” says Allard. Fifty million tonnes of electronic waste are now accumulating around the world.
The recycling rate of collected devices is indeed poor. Except for gold, plastic and silver, most materials are present in too small quantities to allow reuse. Some like tantalum, already come from refining and are therefore too complicated to recycle.
Our drawers are urban mines, in which we find more metals than in natural mines.
In France, according to Ademe figures, reuse represented only 17% of phones purchased in 2021. More than 80% of smartphones are purchased new, with a renewal rate every two or three years. In Europe, nearly 700 million unused phones remain in our drawers. That’s three times the number of phones sold each year on the continent. “These are all objects that are not reintroduced onto the second-hand market,” observes Allard. “It is often said that our drawers are urban mines, in which we find more metals than in natural mines.”
Despite these difficulties, some are trying to promote the recycling of our phones. When writing ”Smartphone Ecologies”, Laurence Allard and her team went to meet activists working on eco-design and reuse. The researcher cites, in particular, the French Electrocylce, whose mission is to recondition digital terminals using functional components recovered from so-called urban mines. “This experimental associative framework is ultimately quite close to the world of repair cafés,” explains the researcher. “It requires knowledge in terms of sourcing, repair and design.”
A second life for our devices
The repair sector is becoming more and more attractive. Created in 2006, the Save company, a smartphone repair specialist, now has 185 workshops in France and repairs nearly 500,000 devices per year. According to a study by the Xerfi firm, the second-hand market, excluding automobiles, reached 7.4 billion euros in 2020. Faced with this growth, training is being developed to meet a growing demand for labor.
Fixit Formation, for example, offers several courses to become a mobile repairer and the Repair Academy creates specialists in micro-welding. “Just to ensure their economic viability, companies will have to accept this reversal of values,” observes Allard, according to whom “an entire bustling industrial ecosystem is growing.”
And this trend could be institutionalized. In France, the Agec law of 2020 stipulates that our smartphones will have to display a durability index from 2024. It will replace the repairability index, in force since the beginning of 2021. The goal: to fight against planned obsolescence.
This rating system is presented in the form of a score between 1 and 10 calculated according to several criteria and accompanied by a color code ranging from red to green. To encourage consumers to buy devices with a better lifespan, the index notably includes in its calculation the ease of repair of the product and its resistance to wear. At the beginning of November, the European Commission, however, rejected the French project, undoubtedly due to an incompatibility with the European sustainability index supposed to emerge in 2025.
“If Europe imposes its sustainability index, it will likely be revised downwards,” worries Adrien Montagut, founder of the Commown cooperative, which has focused on the rental of eco-responsible electronics since 2017, and participated in the design of the French index.
“Contrary to the text which is emerging at the European level, the French durability index wanted to integrate the national repairability index, which includes the coverage of the cost of repair, the mobility of the battery or even the modularity of the devices,” explains Montagut. Thus, in the definition adopted by the European Union, a battery can be described as removable regardless of the number of steps and the time it takes to remove it. The associations are now awaiting the entire European text.
“In all cases, the circular digital economy is developing,” assures Laurence Allard. The legislative framework around repair, recycling and reuse is being organized. And this owes a lot to the work of small businesses and associations.”
A symbol of this revolution “from below,” the Stop Planned Obsolescence association, which stems from a consumer movement, is developing lobbying and advocacy action in the corridors of the European Parliament.
Rethink uses
But the circular economy does not allow us to escape the dynamic of consumption. “Driving recycling upwards by trying to integrate more and more recycled materials into the devices produced is essential to combat the astronomical quantity of electrical and electronic waste,” admits Montagut. “But recycling in and of itself is not a solution if we do not question production volumes.”
The founder of Commown particularly emphasizes the importance of fighting against software obsolescence to extend the life of our devices. The successive updates imposed by our digital tools often cause our smartphones to slow down or even malfunction. Montagut recommends the implementation of free operating systems (OS), like those offered by the Dutch brand Fairphone. “These OSes are less demanding than traditional ones, in part because they limit the distribution of personal data to the servers,” he explains.
But that still might not be enough. According to Ademe figures, the particularly high renewal rate of our smartphones is 25% due to social obsolescence (linked to peer pressure or marketing) and is therefore not linked to malfunctioning hardware or software. Both Montagut and Allard warn against second-hand purchases: they do not systematically replace new purchases, but rather add to them, ultimately causing ever more consumption.
A market “on its head”
“The market as it currently stands is on its head. Much more structuring measures should be put in place at the legislative level to truly stem overproduction,” says Montagut.
The cooperative pleads, for example, for the recognition of marketing obsolescence. “The idea would be, for example, to give scores inversely proportional to the rate at which new models are released,” explains Montagut. There is obviously no consensus on the idea.
Faced with these observations, Commown decided to go against the market. “We are involved in rental because we believe that the dominant sales model is the source of overproduction,” explains Montagut. “From the moment there is an economic interest in selling, companies will develop obsolescence phenomena to encourage regular purchases. In this way, the cooperative encourages us to move closer to a model where users are no longer owners of a product but beneficiaries of a service.”
Progress will not be made without more debates amongst users.
From battery renewal to operating system consulting to breakage support, Commown offers a wide range of support to its customers. “When the device comes back to us damaged, we make sure to repair it to rent it out again,” explains Montagut.
If it is not repairable, we will use it as spare parts stock to repair other devices.” Through this mode of operation, the cooperative tries to provide its customers with a more virtuous model. This model is not suitable for everyone. “In any case,” concludes Laurence Allardn “progress will not be made without more debates amongst users.”
