Functional Phone = Electronic Waste?

Data from Statista's Consumer Insights survey looks at how commonplace it is for people to upgrade their electronics, even when their older model still works. As the following chart shows, this is the case for roughly one in three respondents in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. In Brazil and China, the practice is even more widespread, at least among online respondents.

This practice is criticized on environmental grounds, whether that’s due to the extractive nature of sourcing raw materials needed for new gadgets, the energy-intensive process of producing them or the issue of waste management once they are disposed of.