Green Options

Have you ever considered what becomes of old cellphones when their owners decide it’s time for a new device? Many sit in junk drawers across America, when they could be giving back to the environment by using it to make new products or generate energy.

This is why for 5 years now I have been leading the charge in North America to inspire, enlighten and to try to convince others to respect the environment.

Two Kenyan students have invented a device that allows bicycle riders to charge their phones as they pedal.

Deemed a “dynamo-powered smart charger”, the device should make it more economical for the 17.5 million Kenyans who use mobile phones to charge them. Even more impressive, the environmentally-friendly phone charger was originally built from scraps retrieved from a junkyard.

Researchers at the University of York have recently come up with a method of recycling that seems like it fell from the pages of a science fiction novel. They want to turn discarded television screens into components for biomedicine.

Two weeks ago, we took a look at news from the Congo involving “conflict minerals”: armed groups have exploited the mining of materials such as tin, tungsten, gold, and tantalum, and the people who live near these resources, to fund their fighting. Since then, I’ve had a chance to communicate with David Sullivan, a research associate with the Enough Project, about the issues surrounding the situation in the Congo. David addresses the multiple atrocities — human and environmental — surrounding the trade of these materials, and the actions you can take to ensure electronics manufacturers are aware of these issues.

sustainablog: Oftentimes, situations like these arise from limited economic opportunities. What other means of making a living are available (or could become available) to people in the Eastern Congo? Are there options for these people that couldn’t be as readily exploited by armed groups in the area?

David Sullivan: Impoverished Congolese miners and their families are often entirely dependent on their meager income from mining, and they currently have few viable economic alternatives to lift them out of this indentured servitude. What could be the most promising alternative to mining is agriculture, but the threat of violence often forces Congolese farmers to abandon their fields to flee for safety.

Efforts to end the trade in conflict minerals absolutely must be accompanied by international support for livelihoods and economic opportunities in eastern Congo. Rebuilding roads is a key opportunity, so that other sectors can benefit from trade. Infrastructure projects with guaranteed labor at decent wages can help lure miners out of conflict mines and create opportunities for demobilized combatants. Larger firms can raise miners’ living standards if independently verifiable mechanisms are put in place to ensure that the corporations are not contributing to armed groups, and health, safety, and labor standards are observed at mining sites. International investment should be stepped up in agricultural development initiatives in eastern Congo, which mining has displaced in recent years.  Good models for agricultural investments in mining areas exist in Sierra Leone. Other livelihood initiatives, such as small business development projects, should also be promoted. All projects should be designed in close partnership with miners themselves, and should also be followed up with education initiatives for miners.

Do you recycle your cell phones? It’s a great practice for insuring that toxic materials in those old phones don’t make their way into the environment. But what about the other side of the cell phone lifecycle? Do you know where the materials come from?

It turns out that many of the minerals in that phone have an ugly story behind them, similar to that of blood diamonds. TakePart.com, a project of Participant Media, produced the PSA above as part of a larger campaign to educate the public about the role “conflict minerals” such as tin, tungsten, gold, and tantalum play in funding armed groups fighting in the Eastern Congo. According to Raise Hope for Congo, a campaign of the Enough Project,

The conflict in eastern Congo, the deadliest in the world since World War II, is being fueled by a multi-million dollar trade in minerals that go into our electronic products from cell phones to digital cameras. Over five million people have died as a result of the war, and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped in eastern Congo over the past decade. The armed groups that are perpetuating the violence generate an estimated $144 million each year by trading in [the above-mentioned] four main minerals…

This column highlights the top economic stories of the week.

Shell has announced that a new service station in Ottawa, Ontario will quietly begin selling cellulosic ethanol blended into regular gasoline. The biofuel is made locally from wheat straw, and is the first time cellulosic ethanol has been made publicly available. More on this story here.

In 2009 it is expected that 1 billion [...]

Children and teens’ cell phones can now be monitored by parents for suspicious activity by using the parental control software My Mobile Watchdog, which has also been used by police to catch sexual predators.

“With the rapid growth of mobile technology, children today are exposed to many of the same dangers using a cell phone or mobile device that they face on the web; dangers such as cyber bullying, child predators and exposure to adult themes. RADAR, Your Kids’ Mobile Watchdog, is a parental control service for cell phones and mobile devices that uses patent-pending technology to help parents monitor and protect their children from harm while on their cell phone.”

The Environmental Protection Agency has launched the National Cell Phone Recycling Week as part of the month-long Earth Day festivities. If all 100 million unwanted phones were recycled now it would save enough energy to power 18,500 homes for one full year.

Wilmington, Mass.-based fuel-cell company Lilliputian Systems, which announced it raised $28 million this week, wants to set the record straight.

In October, The Wall Street Journal wrote that the company would be shipping its matchbook-sized fuel cells late this year. But now, the company — which is developing the cells for a range of consumer electronics, including cell phones and laptops — isn’t saying when its products will be commercially available, only that it plans to announce the timing this summer. Does that mean we can expect a delay?

Mouli Ramani, vice president for business development, tells me that’s not the case. When he spoke with the Journal, he was referring to a test-market launch with its partners, not a commercial launch that would make the fuel cells available to the general public, he says. In other words, don’t expect to be able to buy Lilliputian fuel cells at Best Buy this year.

Get a new cell phone. Get a new cell phone charger. And probably a new car charger, too, right?

It’s always seemed silly to me that all cell phones can’t use the same charger. Silly and wasteful. That may be changing. Bloomberg reports that mobile phone manufacturers and operators “will develop a standardized handset charger to save money and energy.”

The new chargers will use 50 percent less energy and cut the number made each year by half, lowering greenhouse gases from making and transporting them by 13.6 million tonnes to 21.8 million tonnes. So far, 17 companies are involved, including Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.’s 3 Group, AT&T Inc., Motorola Inc., France Telecom SA’s Orange, Qualcomm Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Telefonica SA and Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile.

Why has it taken so long for this idea to get implemented? It’s so simple. It’s so smart. It makes so much sense.

Think about how often your cell phone is plugged into a jack. What if there was a way to eliminate all that power use? There may be, according to Tahir Cagin, a professor at Texas A&M University. Cagin and his colleagues have discovered a way to power cell phones using sound waves produced by the user.