I recently came back in contact with some old friends and, not surprisingly, they've continued to do interesting, worthwhile things with their lives. For instance, Lyanda has this really warm and informative blog called Tangled Nest, undoubtedly a reference to her publicized penchant for birds. I highly recommend it!
Her posting for today was so perfect for The Compact Project, I postponed my other planned topic in favor of sharing Transforming Refuse: Sister Monika's Amazing Market Bag. Enjoy! -k8-
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
The Cost of Communication
When asked what their favorite or most used electronic is, I would bet a lot of people would answer a cell phone. But have you ever wondered about the impact of this super important device? James Katz, professor of communication and director of Rutgers University's Center for Mobile Communications Studies, says:"Current statistics indicate that two billion people currently have subscriptions for cellular phones... enough phones for one third of the planet's population. In fact, there are some countries with more cell phones than people. In the United States, 66% of the population owns a cell phone: U.S. population stands at 297 million, with 197 million cell phone users. Collectively, people spent 675 billion minutes talking on cell phones in June 2005."
If you take that number, 197,000,000 users, and times it by the 10 gallons of water it takes to make a single cell phone chip it becomes 1,970,000,000. Nearly 2 billion gallons of water that cannot be used for anything else, possibly ever, because the water becomes polluted with acids, chromium, solvents, various metals, and more.
What can we do to stop this though? A few people refraining from buying cell phones doesn't seem like much help, especially since it wont stop the companies from continuing to make the phones. But there are choices: like Hi-Tech Wealth Co.'s TW S116 Solar Mobile Phone, the first solar powered phone. Or like Motorola's new W233 Renew, which is made from recycles water bottles and "offsets the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the Renew through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation."
There are even companies coming out to help dispose of phones without putting them in landfills or places where they could do harm to the environment, many of these places can be found through the Chicago Recycling Coalition.
But that doesn't solve the problem of waste water, does it. And honestly, I don't know what does. What I think is that, though communication is important and cell phones are very useful to have around, very few things are worth the waste they cause, not even the phones that cause it.
Cell Phone Culture
Corp Watch
Standford News Service
Green Living Ideas
New York Times
If you take that number, 197,000,000 users, and times it by the 10 gallons of water it takes to make a single cell phone chip it becomes 1,970,000,000. Nearly 2 billion gallons of water that cannot be used for anything else, possibly ever, because the water becomes polluted with acids, chromium, solvents, various metals, and more.
What can we do to stop this though? A few people refraining from buying cell phones doesn't seem like much help, especially since it wont stop the companies from continuing to make the phones. But there are choices: like Hi-Tech Wealth Co.'s TW S116 Solar Mobile Phone, the first solar powered phone. Or like Motorola's new W233 Renew, which is made from recycles water bottles and "offsets the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the Renew through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation."
There are even companies coming out to help dispose of phones without putting them in landfills or places where they could do harm to the environment, many of these places can be found through the Chicago Recycling Coalition.
But that doesn't solve the problem of waste water, does it. And honestly, I don't know what does. What I think is that, though communication is important and cell phones are very useful to have around, very few things are worth the waste they cause, not even the phones that cause it.
Cell Phone Culture
Corp Watch
Standford News Service
Green Living Ideas
New York Times
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