The Afterlife of Cellphones

Mobile phones really are the worst face of consumerism.. a few hundred quids worth of technology virtually given away so that people can get ripped off for calls....

I'm so irritated I can't even be bothered to do a decent rant...so you'll have to make up your own sarcastic jibes...

Del

I have very mixed emotions on that comment.

On one hand, I agree with you completely, Del. Phone manufacturers and service providers want you to "upgrade" every year or so, which just creates waste. The device you bought two years ago probably works just as well today as it did then. Since its primary purpose is to make phone calls, why the need to upgrade?

On the other hand, I work in the industry and part of my compensation is based on sales pf phones, even though I do not sell directly, but am involved in sales support. More sales, more money.

So, I would still like to see the phones recycled. In some cases, they can be re-furbished and used by non-profits. One I know of provides them to abused/battered women. Otherwise, it would be good if harmful materials could be properly disposed of and re-use or recycle anything that can be.

Sigh. I deserve your rant, I guess.

How about cathode ray tube TVs? It's crazy how quickly that technology went from modern to antiquated. I think its all the space those LCD TV's save. It makes it almost obligatory to replace all the CRTs.

CRT's, now there is something scary. I have always been somewhat neurotic about the danger of a CRT implosion. I once junked a 25 inch TV for parts for future ham radio projects but I first had my brother remove and get rid of the CRT, he was trained to work with such things. I like the lower voltages in the LCD screens as well.

As neurotic as I was, I don't think that I ever heard of anyone being seriously injured by one but I did see a lot of warnings. They were excellent reminders though of how our children were growing. Each time we had a child (we committed parenthood five times) after the kid became mobile we would notice a pattern of finger prints climbing up the screen over a period of months.

There was a time when companies specialized in the recycling of old mainframe computers as they contained more gold than many grades of ore.

Please forgive me, my babble bit has been set to TRUE.