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Today I gave a talk in India, from the couch in my home in Turin, Italy, thanks to the magic of Internet communications. The conference was organised by IEEE to focus on eWaste, a major issue in India both because India is submerged by eWaste from many Countries of the world and has many issues in disposing them, and because the amount of eWaste produced in India is growing as more and more people buy electronics. Cell phones and smartphones are ubiquitous in India, having seen a tremendous growth in the last decade. The number of mobile subscribers in India has passed the 1 billion mark and every year over 220 million smartphones are sold. On average the lifetime of a phone in India is between 2.2 and 2.5 years. This means that every single day over 1 million phones are discarded (no longer used and replaced by new ones). You may want to take a look at the clip.
The percentage of correct recycling versus improper disposal has increased in the last decade (see graphic) but in absolute term the amount of incorrectly disposed eWaste is growing, in spite of better recycling technology that have become available, including robotised sorting and recycling. LIAM, the robot developed by Apple for recycling iPhones is effective, but only to the extent that iPhone users return their out of date iPhone to Apple stores for proper recycling.
In Italy Telecom Operators are forced by the law to take returned cell phones into their hands and manage them in a proper way. TIM, as an example, has a program of Reverse Logistic Closed Loop managed by a specific organisational unit. This program ensures that all cell phones returned to TIM shops enter into a recycling process aiming at refurbishing the ones that can still have a useful life in the marketplace (86,000 smartphones were refurbished through this program in 2015), or can be disassembled and some of their components reused in the spare parts market or properly disposed. In 2015 382 tons of cellphones have been properly disposed through this program, that is an equivalent of 2.5 million phones. Now that is great but with a rough market size of 25 million phones in the TIM pipeline, it means that only 10 % of those phones end up their life with a proper disposal process.
The crucial point here is the lack of awareness in the large public on the implications deriving from an improper disposal of eWaste. There are advertisement campaigns (although not too many…) to sensitise the public on the need to properly dispose their appliances and devices. Actually the price paid by the customer when buying a product includes the cost for its proper disposal. Unfortunately the users most often miss the point and do not return the obsolete product to the store.
How can a user be sensitised, made aware of the implication of his behaviour and of the ways he can use to ensure a proper disposal?
The claim I made in the talk was to create a digital twin of the smartphone when it is produced and to update this digital twin along the lifetime of its atom based counterpart. When the phone is sold and associated to a SIM card this is noticed by the digital twin. When that phone is being used by a different SIM card this is also recorded. If a phone is no longer used and that SIM card is going into a different phone, the customer can be contacted and offered a bonus (some free traffic or a discount on buying a new phone) if he returns the old phone to a store where it can enter the recycling process.
This approach would surely help in creating awareness and can be used as a marketing tool by the operator. Everyone is set to win. Including the environment.
We have the needed technology for supporting Digital Twins, to move from the world of atoms to the world of bits. It is time to make use of it.
