Examining Smartphone Environmental Impact

Researchers from McMaster University set out to examine smartphone environmental impact. Their study shows that buying a new phone consumes as much energy as using a phone for ten years.
Smartphones are particularly insidious for a few reasons. With a two-year average life cycle, they’re more or less disposable. The problem is that building a new smartphone–and specifically, mining the rare materials inside them–represents 85% to 95% of the device’s total CO2 emissions for two years. That means buying one new phone takes as much energy as recharging and operating a smartphone for an entire decade.