Most consumers think about the end-of-life smartphone cycle as a time to celebrate the arrival of a new smartphone while trading in the old smartphone for monetary value – or, in the case of those whose phones will net them nothing at trade-in, the recycling bin.
Few recycle their smartphones, however, and most consumers are prone to let their smartphones sit around the house rather than recycle the parts to be used for other smartphones or miscellaneous purposes. Samsung is aware that smartphone recycling isn’t all that popular, which is why it’s teaming up with teardown and repair company iFixit to recycle your Samsung Galaxy smartphone in a new way.
The solution to revive recycling and give it new significance is a new program called Galaxy Upcycling. Galaxy Upcycling takes your recycled smartphone and, rather than tear it down and recycle the parts (antennas, wires, aluminium frames, etc.) for miscellaneous use, gives your smartphone a new use in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) agenda.
Your old smartphone can still be used to turn on the lights in your home (thanks to IoT), so Samsung intends to use it and pair it with other platforms for that purpose. Would you like to feed your fish and turn on the lights in your fish tank without leaving your couch? Your old Galaxy S7 or Galaxy Note 5 could do that, thanks to Galaxy Upcycling.
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The purpose of Galaxy Upcycling is to take your old smartphone that’s still in working order and put it toward something useful that allows it to continue “living” instead of being thrown into a landfill with toxins that will only pollute the environment. The Korean Android OEM has always had an environmentally-friendly aim, from its soy ink phone boxes in the days when its phones were plastic, to even recycling the parts of its ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 units to be used in other smartphones and mobile devices.
Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Upcycling program doesn’t have a specific launch date, but it sure will change the way we recycle smartphones in the next decade. There’ll come a time when we won’t “recycle” smartphones, but rather, “upcycle” them. Webster better prepares for a new word to add to the English language.
You can sign up to learn more about Samsung’s Galaxy Upcycling program by clicking on the source link below.
