But that account do Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recalled ? – Le Journal du Geek

first there was the replacement, and then the second failure and finally stop the sale and production of the Galaxy Note 7. Curtain, therefore, for the latest smartphone from Samsung. But in fact, what is the Korean of the more than 2 million devices, he will resume to its customers ? The answer is, alas, still not very clear.

The case of the Galaxy Note 7 (or almost) may be over for Samsung and for the general public, but not for those who are interested in ecology. The question of the future of 2 or 2.5 million of Galaxy Note 7, that Samsung is preparing to restore (via package special) has been asked by the us website Motherboard : what account do Samsung of all these smartphones ?

The recycling of the smartphone in question

The official answer of the Korean is as lapidary as vague : “We have a procedure to get rid of any phone safety “. It is a beginning of answer : Samsung account to get rid of the phones. No question of reuse and repair. The Galaxy Note 7 will, therefore, take the direction of the dumpster. And will very likely have a significant impact on the planet.

Motherboard has in fact posed the question of the recycling of the phones to experts to find out how were going to do Samsung. And the answer is cold in the back. Of course, the phones will be disassembled piece by piece and the number of components and materials will be removed from the Galaxy Note 7 to be defective.

But, says Benjamin Sprecher, a university specializing in the recycling of rare materials, ” in smartphones are not really recycled from the point of view of rare materials “. Thus, it is estimated that the Galaxy Note 7 would have a fifty rare items in its different components, and that only a dozen of them are recycled and recovered.

A mess ecological and human

If one adds to this that the extraction of these rare materials within mines in africa (the Cobalt battery of Samsung comes from the Congo) has had a human cost and ecological important and that these materials will directly be thrown away, it is even more of a real mess. And that is the problem of the end of this Galaxy Note 7 : it is not known exactly what will become of all these components and rare materials that will probably not be used in other devices. The associations for the defence of the environment such as Greenpeace are pushing today Samsung but also other manufacturers of smartphones to be more transparent about the methods of recycling of electronic equipment.

The topic is not new : who knows exactly what became his old smartphone when we decided to buy a new one ? The case of the Galaxy Note 7 only underscores the lack of communication with large groups on the subject.