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Comment by coryfklein | Hacker News Reader

> Are we supposed to be happy with two years? The environmental impact of e-waste and the production of electronics should not be understated.

Can you elaborate on this? Because I'm thinking of the amount of garbage I put in the bin over a period of two whole years, and the size of my phone, its packaging, chargers, cables, and manuals all together is just not even comparable. Even if you add in the environmental cost of the manufacturing I can't imagine it's even a drop in the bucket compared to other waste.

I'm sure it is a good idea to optimize for waste in some respect, but cell phones seem like they must contribute such a minuscule relative amount so as to be safely ignored for now.

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plenty or rare earth element https://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobi...

Also plenty of other elements in your smartphone that you wouldn't find in your normal bin

That article meanders quite a bit, but it didn't convince me that the environmental impact from manufacturing phones is a huge concern, just that the price of some rare earth elements will increase as our current supply runs low, at which point we'll create new mines to increase the supply again.

And how much of that impact is mitigated from recycling phones after you upgrade?

As with anything, any bit counts. It may not seem like it makes a huge difference but in general anything that mitigates the culture of consumerism helps prevent waste.

Yes your own immediate impact on global waste is much higher from your kitchen trash than your device purchases. But people buying a new device every year, regardless of what they do with it after, encourages companies to keep producing these products at tremendous rates, which in turn results in far more environmental impacts due to everything that comes with it.

It’s sometimes hard to see the effects beyond the scope of what we see on a day to day basis, but they are absolutely there at the societal level.

This article reports that "producing a single iPhone (6) requires, roughly, mining 34 kilos of ore, 100 liters of water, and 20.5 grams of cyanide." Also, "a billion iPhones had been sold by 2016, which translates into roughly ...37 million tons of mined rock". https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/433wyq/everything-thats-i...

Those numbers are pretty substantial - we shouldn't underestimate the environmental impact of our smartphone and gadget addictions.

The lifetime of most electronics is much longer than 2 years. The only thing I need to replace regularly is headphones.

Headphones should last a lifetime. Stop buying garbage and treat them well.

It'll be interesting to see how long Bluetooth headphones will last. You lose one vulnerability (the darned cable) and replace it with another (battery).

Good headphones have cables that you can detach and replace, with a universally supported standard (like mini-XLR) built in, so you're not locked into a cable made by a single manufacturer.

My Hifi system is 22 years old now, and going strong. Rotel and Infinity built some seriously good stuff back then.

I'm afraid of how much it'll cost me to replace it when it eventually breaks, if I can't fix it. Have already refurbished the speaker surrounds once, about 10 years go.

Guy at Speakerbits (Melbourne AUS) said the speakers would be worth more than when I bought them, as the mid range quality market just didn't exist anymore - either cheap throw away after a few years crap, or you'd have to go really high end.

I thought I'd check, and it seems like Speakerbits have now closed down. That's such a shame, they did a most excellent job. I guess that's a reflection of the times, people aren't willing to repair anymore. :(

Correction: Speakerbits went offline for a while a couple of years and that was talked about - then silently came back it would seem.

Great, at least I know where I'll go if I wear out the current surrounds or anything else.

Just because OS upgrades stop after 2 years doesn't mean security updates stop. Also technically, 2 years of OS upgrades means 3 years of use since each upgrade last a year afterwards.

Garbage is garbage.

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