A telecom recycles smartphones to improve accessibility and reduce e-waste
CategoriesSustainable News

A telecom recycles smartphones to improve accessibility and reduce e-waste

Spotted: As just about everyone is aware, owning a smartphone is now a necessity. Smartphones are vital not only for communication, but for conducting business, farming, shopping, and banking. Yet new smartphones can be expensive, pushing them out of reach for many. According to some reports, the global average cost of a smartphone is around 26 per cent of the average monthly income, and in some regions, the average person would have to spend over half of their monthly income to buy a smartphone.

South African telecomms company Vodacom is hoping to make smartphones accessible to everyone with their ‘Good as New’ programme. Good as New offers used Apple iphones for sale at a fraction of the cost of a new model. The phones come complete with a standard 12-month warranty, and the devices are approved for resale. The programme involves the refurbishment and recycling of 200,000 phones by 2025, reducing e-waste as well as cost.

Vodacom also plans to expand the number and type of phones it revamps and resells, bringing in additional pre-owned products at lower price points. The company points out that the COVID-19 pandemic forced individuals to find creative ways to continue working and learning, making affordable access to smartphones even more vital. Digital access is also a particularly important issue in South Africa, which has some of the least affordable mobile phone prices in the world.

Smartphones are a lifeline for many – especially those in regions that are poorly served by land-based communications. Springwise has seen some exciting innovations in the use of mobile technology, including an app that lets micro-merchants turn their phone into a point-of-sale system, and a platform that connects smallholder farmers with the marketplace, helping them earn more. 

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Website: vodacom.co.za

Contact: vodacom.co.za/ContactUs

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A modular lithium extraction plant recycles water and brine
CategoriesSustainable News

A modular lithium extraction plant recycles water and brine

Spotted: As demand for lithium-ion batteries rises, the extraction and production processes must be scaled up, often stressing the environment in ways that are not sustainable. Researchers forecast global growth in consumption of lithium will be 33 per cent from 2020 to 2021 and that demand is likely to continue to increase. With water resources already scarce (or polluted) in many locations around the world, improving the health of lithium production is a necessity to ensure the future health of the environment. 

Canada’s International Battery Metals company recently concluded successful tests of its first mobile, commercial-scale lithium extraction plant. Integral to the success of the new approach is the swiftness of set-up and modular design. The company points to the current five-to-twelve-year lead time to build and activate an industrial plant as one of the main reasons such flexibility and speed are needed. The modular unit was set up in 10 days by a crew of nine.

This allows the global market to expand the number of viable extraction locations, as the modularity makes it possible to assemble and work in terrains previously considered too difficult to reach. Even more importantly, the new International Battery Metals process prioritises water and brine recycling to avoid creating the many thousands of kilogrammes of salty water waste that results from most extraction methods. In fact, the new process recycles slightly more than 98 per cent of the water used in the system.

As electric vehicle demand continues to grow, creating less waste and causing less environmental damage is a priority at all stages of the battery life cycle, with innovators creating new uses for used EV batteries as well as a chemical-free process for producing the metal from granite.  

Written by: Keely Khoury

Email: info@ibatterymetals.com

Website: ibatterymetals.com

Reference

Road repair process sequesters carbon and recycles asphalt
CategoriesSustainable News

Road repair process sequesters carbon and recycles asphalt

Spotted: There are roughly 70 million kilometres of road worldwide. Most roads are made using oil-based bitumen to bind the small pieces of crushed materials together. Maintaining and repairing such an extensive network currently involves trucking in new materials to fill holes and cracks on heavy duty construction vehicles. All of this combines to make roads significant polluters.

That may be changing soon, thanks to Norwegian startup Carbon Crusher. Using dedicated machinery and a paper industry byproduct, the company has developed a carbon negative road repair process. This new process recycles the old road surface by scraping off the top layer and crushing it. Carbon Crusher’s machine greatly reduces the size of the pieces of road, which, when bonded together with lignin (a natural byproduct of the paper industry), create a more flexible, sustainable surface.

By scraping off the entire road surface and crushing it small enough for reuse in smooth, uniform application, Carbon Crusher eliminates the need to bring in new materials to fill previous surface damage. Lignin’s flexibility also helps reduce long-term maintenance costs as roads become more resilient and strong.

Carbon Crusher is currenlty focusing on developing its equipment and the roads themselves. Yet future plans include making roads act as chargers for electric vehicles. Moreover, further reductions in time and resource cost could be achieved by making the machinery autonomous and hydrogen powered.

Several innovators are seeking ways to make wheeled transport smarter and more efficient. Recent innovations spotted by Springwise include new methods for turning roads into power generators and connected bike helmets that keep riders and drivers safer.  

Written by: Keely Khoury

Email: info@carboncrushing.com

Website: carboncrusher.io

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