Post
There are around 700 million unused phones in EU homes.
That’s nearly two devices for every single person.
By disposing of them properly, we can:
🔸Reuse lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements
🔸Reduce our reliance on imports
🔸Increase our resilience against global market disruptions
The EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan wants to make repairable design the norm, as a vital step toward reducing e-waste.
@EUCommission or we can renew and keep using our phones with Free Software!
https://fsfe.org/activities/upcyclingandroid/ #FreeSoftware #UpcyclingAndroid #FOSS
@EUCommission also good to add that
Starting from June 20, 2025, smartphones and tablets sold in the European Union must have a minimum of 5 years of software support
Some older Android phones can accept @GrapheneOS so they can be used again rather tha recycled 🤨
@EUCommission Allow unlocking the bootloaders would stimulate clean and safe OS alternatives, longer life for devices and independence from US tech. The EU could enforce it with tthe impulse of the EC. Stop #enshitification.
@EUCommission One of the nice things that could "be the norm" is smartphones that can properly function without a battery. Too often when the battery's dead, the device is out. Or if someone wants to use a smartphone that isn't able to phone anymore as a computer for other tasks, then it would need to be plugged in for long periods of times and it's risky with a battery (no matter the so called over charging protections). An easy way to do that could be pretty useful to avoid e-waste.
@EUCommission That’s a staggering number—turning unused phones into a resource instead of waste just makes sense. Repairability and proper recycling could really reduce dependency and make the whole system more sustainable 📱♻️
If the smartphone is fairly recent, consider donating it for refugees:
(There may be similar initiatives in your country)
It is fairly common for #EU countries to follow the racist and xenophobic lead of the @EUCommission and walk the extra mile to make the lives of refugees as miserable as they possibly can. From the article linked above:
»With a phone as their smart companion, people on the run can recognise their current location, communicate with relatives and friends and, in the worst case, also record crimes and offences. This is because officers often commit bodily harm at border crossings or push back fleeing people via illegal pushbacks. Using a smartphone, fugitives can at least record evidence to report border officials at a later date. However, Daniel Looser from “Wir packen’s an” describes it as a “completely normal tactic” for mobile phones to be confiscated along with other items during border controls. Charging sockets are also regularly destroyed, rendering phones unusable a short time later.«
@EUCommission Hello everyone I'm new here please
Pro Čechy mezi námi … https://remobil.cz/ organizuje sběr starých mobilních telefonů v Česku a mezi jinými možnostmi sběru kterákoli prodejna T-Mobilu by měla být sběrné kontejnery na staré mobily (i pro mobily od jiných providerů).
I'm looking girl
@EUCommission
Unused phone means bad hardware then ? Europe kills GSM networks, garbaging lots of working devices, and let big tech companies cheating customers by telling them to change their WORKING phones every 2-3 years.
Got a Nokia 3310 ?
👍 Was European, rock solid, made to call & text using standards.
👎 Today, networks used killed, European company bought by big tech, US Android as the only OS, loaded with GAFAM bloatware, locked stores and RCS as the texting standard.
Where's EU?
@EUCommission i have a netbook with 1 GB of RAM that im finding it much easier to repurpose than a phone with 3 GB of RAM and a much more powerful CPU
being able to remove the battery easily, run directly from the charger without a battery connected, and have an open bootloader so that i can install a modern and lighter operating system on it, while also not relying on whether google decides if my device is allowed to be useful or not because I chose the operating system instead of letting the OEM choose it for me (and then the OEM drops support much sooner than I'd like to keep using the device for) would reduce e-waste much more than disposing of the old phones
sure, i agree disposing of old devices to recycle them is a good way to prevent e-waste and save resources. but being able to keep our devices for much longer than is currently the case would be even more effective at that
@EUCommission probably no one reads it here, but you should give some resources to @postmarketOS , since they are the forefront for this problem; and they tackle it even before recycling, making these devices reusable.
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