Smartphone manufacturers planning the next generation of products must consider modular components as more countries turn to right-to-repair legislation to stem the rising tide of ewaste. This is a warning from Emma Armstrong, Sustainable Electronics Ambassador and Group Commercial Director at In2tec.
Mobile phones are a major culprit of our culture of throwaway electronics, where valuable components and vital materials like gold, silver, copper and rare earth elements are discarded in landfill instead of being reused. These materials must be replaced, causing untold environmental, financial, and medical damage.
Millions of tonnes of ewaste are recycled informally and unsafely, releasing up to 1,000 chemical substances into the environment, including dangerous neurotoxicants such as lead. However, there is a growing trend towards modular smartphones – where the phone chassis is designed to hold swappable modules, including batteries, memory, cameras and processors.
These phones, from producers like Fairphone and HMD, make it possible to customise, repair and upgrade without needing to get an entirely new handset. Emma is an advocate for modular technology, where electronics are designed to be disassembled so components can be easily repaired, replaced, and recycled.
She said: “Consumers who want an improved product, or even simply to repair the handset they paid good money for, are being forced to buy a new model.
“Mobile phones are designed to be too costly to get repaired and almost impossible to upgrade – a cynical and wasteful approach that is already being condemned by legislators and the environmentally – aware wider public.
“A phone with modular components is much more environmentally friendly than getting a new phone, but it still offers the manufacturer the opportunity to profit from upgrades. Meanwhile, consumers get the benefit of simple and cost-effective customisation, such as a better camera or a larger battery.”
As supply chains for components tighten, more right-to-repair regulations will be introduced and tightened, and the electronics industry needs to plan for this new normal. For example, under current EU legislation, manufacturers are required to repair consumer goods either free of charge or at a reasonable cost. “More than a billion mobile phones and 300 million laptops are produced annually,” Emma added.
“This staggering output contributes to the estimated 347 million tonnes of ewaste on the planet, which is expected to grow to 746 million tonnes by 2030. Yet there is a solution that combines economic and environmental viability – the reuse, repair, and refurbishment of electronics.”
In2tec aims to slash the harrowing environmental and societal impact of ewaste and provide innovative solutions to the growing problem of throwaway electronics. Historically, technical challenges have made circularity in the electronics industry economically unviable.
Stress caused to de-soldered components by the reclamation process can limit the opportunity to regain viable components, and widely used methods of recovering materials are inefficient, destroy value, and are costly in terms of emissions/energy.
The company’s signature ReUSE and ReCYCLE are alternatives that comprise a closed-loop process, allowing manufacturers to remove components from existing electronics at the end of their useful life and reuse them.
ReUSE is a series of materials, processes and design principles used to manufacture printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs), while ReCYCLE is the ultra-low energy process for unzipping PCBAs – the foundation of nearly all technology – to the original bill of materials (BoM).
The technology’s versatility allows global commercialisation and a vast reduction in the overall energy used to manufacture and process when it reaches its end of life, something that is impossible when using conventional PCBA processes or materials.
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