Samsung announced it was ditching non-essential plastic in its electronics and mobile phones in favor of bioplastics and recyclable materials like paper and card.
This is great news and follows a number of others including Apple and Huawei doing the same. Yet, the electronics industry is still responsible for a massive amount of waste -- oftentimes because it is so hard and expensive to repair our electronics goods. The whole point of this from their perspective is to keep us buying more products, but that means throwing away the old ones -- in the tech and design industries, this is known as "planned obsolescence."
The saying is "reduce, reuse and recycle". But these companies are making it so hard to repair their products that you can't reuse or recycle them.
To stop our electronics goods and mobile phones from ending up in landfills we must demand that electronics makers create an industry-wide agreement that puts the "right to repair" as a cornerstone of their sustainability policy. Add your name to the petition today!
These companies have the power to make their products last longer and make repairing them easier so that fewer overall are going to landfills. It's time that they put our environment's health above their profits before our e-waste problem turns into a full-blown crisis.
E-waste, or electronic waste, is often shipped from wealthier countries to developing ones, where workers who are oftentimes children are paid dollars a day to process our phones, computers, car batteries, and more. These electronics contain dangerous toxins like lead and cadmium that can lead to devastating health issues for those who come in contact with them. Plus, these dangerous chemicals often leak into the groundwater of these communities, poisoning nearby animal and plant life. All this so that we can have the latest phone, or the newest laptop.
It's time to make a change. The U.S. alone create 59 million tons of electronic waste in 2019. Big tech companies must make the first move in creating more longevity for our devices by making it easier for us to repair them! Sign the petition today!
