The average user of a mobile phone is generating nearly two tonnes of carbon dioxide from using their phone. A Wellingborough business thinks it has found the answer and is a finalist in the NNBN Green Award.
The UK loves its mobile phones; the average person uses their mobile phone for 4 hours and 14 mins per day (Statista 2022). To make a mobile phone takes approximately 13,000 litres of water (Friends Of The Earth, Mind Your Steps) and between 80-90kg of carbon dioxide (8billiontrees.com). Once it has been made, switching on and using your mobile phone also generates carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases which are helping to fuel climate change.
Whilst mobile phones and the UK’s love of them is not going away, we do need to lessen their impact. Although individuals and local businesses cannot reduce the resources used to make devices, apart from keeping them longer, repairing them and buying refurbished devices, they can offset the damage done from their usage.
A Wellingborough business is helping individuals lead the fight to have a guilt free way of using a mobile phone. Repair Not Replace, which was set up to prevent mobile phones, computer and tablets going to landfill, offers a convenient, hassle-free and carbon neutral door step repair service. The organisation has partnered with Ecologi to launch a simple subscription allowing individuals and businesses to offset the carbon footprint of their mobile phone and 12 months of guilt free usage with a simple one off payment each year.
Repair Not Replace has calculated the amount of carbon dioxide being produced by an average mobile phone from storing documents and photos in the cloud, sending a text message and making a call.
- 1 hour of streaming a video on a mobile phone creates 9 – 12g of Co2 (Honest mobile)
- 1 minute phone call 0.1 – 0.5g of Co2 (Honest mobile)
- Text 0.014 – 0.019g of Co2 (Honest mobile)
- 1 GB data storage in the cloud 3kg of Co2 (8billiontrees.com)
- The average person has 500GB of data stored across multiple cloud services. (Pcloud.com)
The subscription
For one fixed price of £36.99, subscribers can have peace of mind that their love for their mobile phone is not damaging the world. They will get a certificate and access to see the offsetting projects they are helping to fund. Practical ideas and tips on how to lessen their carbon footprint from their device even further will also come out during the year.
The offsetting is done by planting trees, helping to set up wind farms, generating electricity from landfill, avoiding methane emissions from landfill, peatland restoration, solar power generation and other offsetting projects. You can find out more about the projects by visiting https://ecologi.com/repairnotreplace.
Repair Not Replace is also a finalist in the 2023 NNBN Business Awards for the Green Award. Since Repair Not Replace was set up, it has helped its customers save approximately 480 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Anyone wanting to sign up for the service can visit https://repairnotreplace.co.uk/planet.