In fact, in 2019 smartphone upgrades hit record lows at two of the biggest US carriers, Verizon and AT&T. In recent years, several reports show how Americans and Europeans are more than happy to hold on to their phones for longer periods of time.
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The smartphone upgrade cycle has gotten longerĮven with the enticing deals offered by carriers, the upgrade cycle has seemingly lengthened.
It's something to think about before making that upgrade. Imagine if it was 10 million or 100 million. If even 1 million people waited that extra year, we could save 70,000,000 kilograms of carbon from going into the air in a year. After all, Apple says the iPhone 12's end-to-end supply chain emits 70 kilograms of carbon to the atmosphere. While Apple is committed to a net zero supply chain by 2030, it's tough to argue that there's a better alternative to lower carbon consumption than less consumption. Read more: I paid $69 to replace my iPhone battery: Here's what happened The UN's 2020 Global E-waste Monitor report found that the world dumped a record 53.6 million tonnes of e-waste last year, of which the US is the world's second-largest contributor to e-waste, dumping 6.9 million tonnes. In Southern China, there is a town called Guiyu that has become known as the world's biggest graveyard for America's electronic junk, and synonymous among environmentalists with toxic waste. And often e-waste isn't properly managed. iPhones contain toxic materials like lead and mercury, for instance, which can harm the environment and people if disposed of improperly. Although that is now beginning to change, there are real costs. Experts have warned about how e-waste disposal contributes to climate change due to the chemicals released when the waste is burned, some of which are equivalent to carbon dioxide.įor years, developed countries like the US have shipped recyclable waste overseas for processing. Read more: Apple is opening up its world of iPhone recyclingĬonsumer electronics are responsible for tonnes of e-waste annually, which in turn contributes to the climate crisis. What, exactly, happens to all those discarded phones over time? Does all that plastic ever fully decompose?Īpple says it removed the in-box charger from its iPhone 12 lineup for environmental reasons. There are more climate-related disasters than ever before, arctic caps are melting and biodiversity is disappearing faster than we can save it. Countries around the world keep setting new records for the highest temperatures. You've read the headlines: Climate change is accelerating at rapid speed. Read more: Billions of people still can't afford smartphones: That's a major problemīeyond that, and perhaps more tangibly, I think we should consider the environmental cost of purchasing a new phone. From my perspective, the trend of routinely upgrading a phone every two years when it doesn't change that much is a privilege, one that reminds me of the stark income equality gap as well as the ever-increasing digital divide globally. In India, the average person needs to save two months' salary to buy the cheapest available smartphone, according to a survey published by the Alliance for Affordable Internet last August. I was born and raised in developing Asia, a region where buying a smartphone is financially unattainable for hundreds of millions of people, much less a two-year upgrade.
And the trade-in deals were even better this year for the iPhone 13.īut even though that might still be the norm in the US, a routine upgrade isn't a thing for much of the world. Case in point: AT&T and Verizon marketed a "free" iPhone 12 last year for customers who buy unlimited plans and commit to a multiyear deal. That feeling of ponying up just a couple hundred dollars (or less) for the newest, fanciest phone available has helped perpetuate the rise of the de facto two-year phone upgrade.
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Mobile carriers have long persuaded many of us to upgrade our smartphones every two years, offering two-year contracts linked to free or low-cost phone upgrades to keep the two-year upgrade cycle going. Even for discerning shoppers like me, it takes serious willpower to resist the lure of a purple iPhone or 1TB of storage. After all, the newest phone is only the newest phone for so long.
As Apple's annual fall event draws close, many of us start to check in on our previous two-year smartphone plan to see if we're eligible for an upgrade in September.
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