Current mobile contracts damaging the environment

 

Researchers from the University of Surrey analysed studies on the lifespan of mobile devices, from manufacture, use and disposal to see what impact each stage had on the environment. Through their investigation, they concluded that the current mobile business model, driven by frequent upgrades, is costing both the manufacturer and the environment. The study argues that where frequent upgrades are encouraged and recycling schemes not actively pursued, valuable materials integral to phone manufacture are lost, causing damage to the environment by additional waste to landfill as well as from the impact of extracting additional finite resources. "There are an estimated 85 million unused phones in the UK," said lead author Dr James Suckling from the University of Surrey. "Each of these phones has been manufactured using precious metals such as gold, copper and silver which are costly to extract, both in cash-terms and environmental impact. These unused phones contain approximately 4 tonnes of gold, lost resource that would cost £110million and an equivalent of 84,000 tonnes of CO2 released into the atmosphere to replace. "The current business model of mobile contracts encourages consumers to upgrade frequently, regardless of whether their current phone is fit for purpose. Our study shows that there is little incentive for people to recycle old mobiles. Unfortunately this leaves many unused devices lingering in drawers, until they are eventually thrown away and end up in landfill. This isn't a trend that can continue if we are to have the mobile lifestyle we want, while still ensuring a sustainable future." As an alternative, the researchers propose a 'cloud-based product service system', where the heavy processing and memory storage of mobile devices are moved to a remote server, over the internet. Without the need for complex processing, mobile devices could become less complex, designed to last longer and requiring less precious resources to make. Together with a "take-back" clause in the mobile service contract, researchers believe that consumers would be encouraged not only retain their device for longer, but to return it to the manufacturer at the end of the service contract. This would be instrumental in ensuring that the resources tied up in mobile phones are retained and not lost to landfill. "This is a model that has been used already. Replacing power hungry desktop PCs with thin client computers that run off cloud services, with less hardware reduced power consumption by up to 55%," said Dr Suckling. "There are of course other challenges to overcome. Our research team is now looking at how to implement such business models while convincing consumers that cloud services can be trusted to deliver services, and hold data privately and securely. This will be one important focus for our continuing research, as will be understanding the wider impact of the mobile lifecycle on the environment and what impact new business models will have on this cycle." Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by University of Surrey. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: James Suckling et al. The International Journal Of Life Cycle Assessment. The International Journal Of Life Cycle Assessment, June 2015

20 images that show the human impact on the planet

 

Posted by Michael Thomas April 6, 2015 The human impact on this planet has been huge in a relatively short period of time. These pictures are not about data, but about better picturing this impact through visual examples. While viewing these, keep in mind that our current extinction rate is 1000x the background level and that wild animal populations have shrunk an average of 52% in 40 years. 1. A surfer riding through debris Photograph: Zak Noyle Plastic has permeated our oceans, with over 270 million metric tons of in the ocean there is potentially more plastic than fish in the oceans right now. This becomes even more believable when we consider that up to 85% of fisheries are being overexploited. 2. Deforestation in British Columbia, Canada Photograph: Garth Lentz Deforestation is a major problem, and we now have only half as many forests as we did in 1950. We are simultaneously putting out vastly more carbon into the atmosphere while depleting the planet’s capacity to absorb it. 3. Animal agriculture Photograph: Peter Beltra Animal agriculture, as a whole, requires tremendous amounts of resources and is a leader in environmental degradation, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (more than all transportation combined). Clearing land for animal agriculture, and the food it requires, accounts for 91% of amazon deforestation. 4.  Kowloon City in Hong Kong Hong Kong is still one of the most densely populated cities on Earth with 6,650 people per square kilometer. When Kowloon City still stood, it housed 33,000 people in a single city block. 5. Mexico City, urban sprawl Photograph: Pablo Lopez Luz Mexico City is also one of the most populated cities in the world, and its expansion has wiped out natural ecosystems for many kilometers. Together, this has led to very bad air quality, a continuing concern for Mexican health authorities. 6.  Port au Prince, Haiti 7. Crop “desert” in China, no room for nature Huge swaths of China, and indeed many developed and developing countries, is covered in fields containing only one kind of plant. Where fields and forests once stood, now stands neat rows of single species, far more sensitive to environmental fluctuations than a diverse ecosystem. 8. Deforestation in Brazil Brazilian rainforest being clear-cut for cattle raising, photograph: Daniel Beltra 9. Plastic moves up the food chain In both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems: plastic moves up. The tiny and not so tiny pieces are eaten by animals which are themselves then eaten: it moves up the food chain. With all the microplastics in our oceans and water: do we really think this isn’t reaching us? 10. Cheap fossil energy won’t last forever, and it certainly wasn’t free Depleting oil fields are yet another symptom of ecological overshoot, as seen at the Kern River Oil Field, California. 11. The Yangtze River turning red Whether due to microorganisms or industrial pollution: this is certainly a bad sign for the ecosystem. There is reason to believe that when enough small ecosystems collapse, the global biosphere will become destabilized and mass extinction will intensify. 12. Alberta Tar Sands, where there was once a boreal forest Photo by Garth Lenz The tar sands are one of the most dirty sources of oil, and the extraction of this oil has polluted both the water and the land locally in Alberta. The fact that this project was OK’d by any environmental regulator is shocking, but this becomes less shocking when you realize that Alberta literally sold their regulator posts to the oil industry. 13. The Deepwater Horizon crisis Approximately 5 million barrels of oil (almost a million cubic meters) spilled into the ocean. In response to this disaster, BP sprayed Corexit (which is so poisonous that the US government demanded they stop) onto the oil to get it to disappear from sight. Millions of barrels of oil still lay on the bottom of the Gulf, rendering hundreds to thousands of square miles devoid of life. Meanwhile, BP got off with a slap on the wrist and a connected high-ranking Halliburton manager who destroyed evidence was fined only $1,000. 14.  What was once a forest in Oregon is now a wasteland Industrial forestry degrading public lands, Willamette National Forest in Oregon, Photograph: Daniel Dancer See previous points about deforestation, also keep in mind that the prices demanded for exploitation of Federal/public lands is pennies on the dollar for the ecological costs and profit the companies make. They demand so little that the Navajo were able to sue them for exploiting their lands and not returning even close to market price. 15. Oil filters in Seattle, 2003 Photography: Chris Jordan 16. Junkyard full of metal scraps Photography: Chris Jordan 17. Mountain of phone chargers Photography: Chris Jordan 18. Sea of cellphones Photography: Chris Jordan Our lust and desire for smartphones, and next-generation technologies of all kinds, are fueling conflict and loss of life the Congo. 19. Clearcutting in Finland 20. Fish die-off at Redondo Beach, California With our population already at 7 billion people and overconsumption rising at a terrifying rate, this is something serious that many people have a hard time picturing. The truth is shocking, and when I look at these photos I can only imagine all the heart-wrenching images of environmental destruction that go unseen by most humans, the scenes which lay unvisited in the mountains or in the hearts of what were once forests.

Major breakthrough could help detoxify pollutants

 

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Smokestacks (stock image). "As well as combatting the toxicity and longevity of pollutants we're also confident that our findings can help to develop a better method for screening environmental or food samples," one scientists noted.

Scientists at The University of Manchester hope a major breakthrough could lead to more effective methods for detoxifying dangerous pollutants like PCBs and dioxins. The result is a culmination of 15 years of research and has been published in Nature. It details how certain organisms manage to lower the toxicity of pollutants.

The team at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology were investigating how some natural organisms manage to lower the level of toxicity and shorten the life span of several notorious pollutants.

Professor David Leys explains the research: "We already know that some of the most toxic pollutants contain halogen atoms and that most biological systems simply don't know how to deal with these molecules. However, there are some organisms that can remove these halogen atoms using vitamin B12. Our research has identified that they use vitamin B12 in a very different way to how we currently understand it."

He continues: "Detailing how this novel process of detoxification works means that we are now in a position to look at replicating it. We hope that ultimately new ways of combating some of the world's biggest toxins can now be developed more quickly and efficiently."

It's taken Professor Leys 15 years of research to reach this breakthrough, made possible by a dedicated European Research Council (ERC) grant. The main difficulty has been in growing enough of the natural organisms to be able to study how they detoxify the pollutants. The team at the MIB were finally able to obtain key proteins through genetic modification of other, faster growing organisms. They then used X-ray crystallography to study in 3D how halogen removal is achieved.

The main drive behind this research has been to look at ways of combatting the dozens of very harmful molecules that have been released into the environment. Many have been directly expelled by pollutants or from burning household waste. As the concentration of these molecules has increased over time their presence poses more of a threat to the environment and humanity. Some measures have already been taken to limit the production of pollutants, for example PCBs were banned in the United States in the 1970s and worldwide in 2001.

Professor Leys says: "As well as combatting the toxicity and longevity of pollutants we're also confident that our findings can help to develop a better method for screening environmental or food samples."

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Manchester University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Karl A. P. Payne, Carolina P. Quezada, Karl Fisher, Mark S. Dunstan, Fraser A. Collins, Hanno Sjuts, Colin Levy, Sam Hay, Stephen E. J. Rigby & David Leys. Reductive dehalogenase structure suggests a mechanism for B12-dependent dehalogenation. Nature, October 2014 DOI: 10.1038/nature13901

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