"Americans toss millions of cell phones each year in favor of newer technology—and all those discarded phones may be taking a toll on the environment. Electronic scrap accounts for 70 percent of the overall toxic waste currently found in landfills.[12] According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 141 million mobile phones were discarded in 2009 and only 12 million of those were collected for recycling.[13] A cell phone’s shelf life is only about 18 months for the average consumer.[14] This means that newer cell phone models are constantly put up on the market to replace older ones. This is as a result of the rapid progression of technology in the mobile industry. According to Matt Ployhar of Intel, the industry is rapidly evolving, possibly even at “Moore's law pace of faster.”[15] This means that newer cell phone models are continually on the rise of consumerism and more outdated models are likely to end up in landfills." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_recycling)
Over 80,000,000,000 aluminum soda cans are used every year. A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the grocery shelf as a new can, in as little as 60 days. (Source) New statistics released by the Aluminum Association this year indicate the aluminum can recovery rate is on the rise and reached 65.1% in 2011. (Source) But this means that still 28,000,000,000 cans end up in landfills around the world every year.
Since 2009, Seattle-based photographer Chris Jordan has been filming and photographing the albatross birds living on Midway Island in the Pacific Ocean. His images are shocking and startling: dead and decaying birds, with their stomachs filled with plastic pollution like bottle caps and cigarette lighters. (Source and Photographs)
Play your part.
Rethink, recycle and reduce.
And, surprisingly, not everything is looking so bad. Using renewable energy and products will help us a lot in the future to improve our efficiency and to reduce our overall footprint.
There are more companies every day that consider sustainability and green thinking as a major aspect in their philosophy and work process.
At this stage it is technology just as well as our mindset that will reduce CO2 emission and eventually save nature and a couple of polar bears!
Using these renewable products and energy sources will be the future but let us not forget that renewable energy plants will need a place to be. It is left to us to do the right choices in the future, left to us alone.
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Thank you for taking the time and for keeping an idea in your mind that one day we will achieve what we aim for.
