Back in 2015, Samsung launched its recycling program to bring in older smartphone models in an attempt to be environmentally friendly. However, a recent infographic shared by the company revealed that this program only managed to bring in just 0.0019% of older devices.
According to the blog post (Via Neowin) which celebrated Earth Day, the South Korean tech giant revealed that the company’s recycling program as of 2019 only recorded modest results. While the initiative from the brand is good for the environment, but the figure reveals that the company is still lagging in this regard. Since 2015, the campaign from Samsung only took in 38,000 handsets as of May 2019. This implies that the number of devices that came in represented just 0.0019% over the total 2 billion Galaxy devices that are in circulation as of February 2019.
Notably, finding where the devices that are currently in their product lifecycle are hard to find, especially when these range in the billions. Furthermore, a lot of these Galaxy devices are likely still being used by the customer who purchased the device while a few of them would’ve found their way to second hand market. Notably, a fraction of these smartphones might have been repurposed as a part of the Galaxy Upcycling program.
For those unaware, any and every phone that is built by using rare earth metals that are limited in quantity. These are bad for the planet to mind and also involve miners that work in bad working conditions. Thus, bringing in older devices would enable companies to recycle these materials without having to mine them again.
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