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A second life for smartphones

Make a valuable contribution to environmental protection - and drop off old cell phones at the university store starting March 21.

by Tanja Heinlein ·

According to Bitkom 2021, around 22 million new smartphones are sold in Germany every year. Immense quantities of gold, palladium, silver, copper and plastic are needed for production. At the same time - again according to Bitkom 2021 - around 206 million old cell phones are stored unused in drawers, still functioning perfectly but no longer meeting the latest standards. Yet every single correctly collected cell phone can reduce the environmentally harmful depletion of resources and do something good for the environment.

This was also recognized by Bayreuth students Mia Ströll, Michelle Pagels and Paul Bräumer (photo from left) in the winter semester of 2021/22 as part of their final project for the supplementary sustainability course: they developed a project on the topic of "E-ReUse". "The focus in the first step is on the reuse of unused but still functional devices," explains Michelle Pagels. "If re-use is no longer possible, certified recycling follows." The goal of the young project team is to educate consumers about the potential of saving rare raw materials.

"It is of great concern to us that sustainability does not remain a marginalized topic, but becomes socially acceptable."

Team E-Reuse

This is how

From March 21, a collection box will be placed in the university store on campus, where old smartphones (preferably with a working charging cable) will be collected to be donated to the initiative "Mobile phones for the environment" of the Deutsche Umwelthilfe for sale. Of course, the data on the end devices will be completely deleted beforehand - so data protection is guaranteed.

On March 21, the team around Ströll, Pagels and Bräumer will hand over the topic and thus also the box in the store to the experienced initiative "Technology without Borders" of the University of Bayreuth, which is already in charge of projects concerning the recycling of electronic waste and will also take care of action days at the Bayreuth campus in the future. 

Good reasons to drop off cell phones at the university store

1. Every device handed in conserves resources and protects the environment
Every cell phone sent to the "Cell Phones for the Environment" initiative is carefully checked for usability. After complete data erasure, it is professionally refurbished, repaired if necessary, or even used to recover spare lines. If devices are not suitable for reuse, they are recycled in an environmentally friendly manner. Around 10 - 20 % of cell phones can continue to be used in this way, which means in concrete terms that valuable resources and also greenhouse gas emissions are saved per cell phone, which would be necessary for the production of a new device.

2. Reduction of pollutants
Unfortunately, cell phones also contain harmful substances such as heavy metals and flame retardants. To protect the environment and people's health, old cell phones must therefore not be disposed of in normal household waste. By recycling cell phones that are no longer used, these pollutants are treated in an environmentally friendly manner and their release is prevented.

3. Support environmental protection projects
The proceeds from reprocessed recycled cell phones are used to support environmental and nature conservation projects run by Deutsche Umwelthilfe. In this way, everyone can easily make a commitment to cleaner oceans, less waste, more environmentally friendly products and a planet worth living on.

Study program "Sustainability"
All information about the additional study program Sustainability at the University of Bayreuth can be found online at www.zsnachhaltigkeit.uni-bayreuth.de.

Information on the initiative of Deutsche Umwelthilfe:
The cell phone collection is supported by the environmental and consumer protection association Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), its initiative www.HandysfuerdieUmwelt.de and the Mobile-Box take-back system, which has received an award from the Sustainability Council of the German Federal Government. Since 2003, Deutsche Umwelthilfe has been promoting the conscious use and collection of old cell phones with its "Cell Phones for the Environment" initiative. As a result, DUH and its partners have already been able to collect more than three million discarded cell phones. 

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