Mobile World Congress | Refurbished phones find their way to Mobile World Congress | Nuclear magnetic resonance | Technique

Mobile World Congress is a great showcase of new developments in the mobile technology sector, but this year’s refurbished phones are also making a name for themselves, and they are committed to extending the life of products by reducing their carbon footprint and e-waste.

Brands like POCO, trulyHonor or Nokia these days in Barcelona is showcasing its latest developments in the field of mobile phones, with innovations that improve battery life, the quality of photographs or the display of content.

Along with them are also companies like Smartwhose proposal is fundamentally different: refurbishing cell phones to give them a second life while allowing for more responsible consumption.

Refurbished phones are used equipment that has been professionally checked and repaired before being put up for sale again to be 100 percent working. This process is also linked to a series of services, such as the warranty period, deadlines for returning it, or the possibility of contacting customer service.

These types of devices can be up to 50 percent cheaper than new cell phones, as we’ve shown Smart. This company participates in a ‘pavilion’ at the French Business Technology Pavilion in France, where it reports on some of its operations, such as its short-distance-based collection network, which allows more than 75 percent of phones in France to be collected and helps reduce transport-related pollution. .

Going beyond the price, they explained from SMAAART that 80 percent of a phone’s carbon pollution is due to its manufacture. In this sense, its impact is 60 kg of carbon dioxide emissions, while that of a refurbished phone is only 8 percent.

Although it doesn’t have a head-to-head “stand”, Back Market is also committed to renovation. Citing data from the French Agency for Environmental Transformation (human), this company points out another fact: a single refurbished smartphone avoids 175 grams of e-waste. Each new mobile phone generates about 199 grams of e-waste, while a refurbished phone produces only 24 grams, or 88 percent less.

The effect is also different in the extraction of raw materials, since obtaining materials such as gold, silver, aluminum, copper, cobalt, chromium, etc., is equivalent to about 283 kilograms of excavated soil to obtain the minimum necessary minerals and minerals. Refurbished smartphones require fewer raw materials (23.1 grams).

Mining and extraction of raw materials also require water consumption, which in the case of new equipment is estimated at 82,300 liters, while the returned smartphone saves 68,400 liters of water.