More than five billion mobile phones are likely to be thrown away or forgotten in 2022, experts say. They want more recycling of the valuable materials inside them.
Stacked flat on top of each other, this many phones would rise 50,000km, a hundred times higher than the International Space Station!
Although smartphones contain gold, copper, silver, palladium and other valuable materials, almost all these unwanted phones will be forgotten or thrown away, harming the environment.
"Smartphones are one of the electronic products of highest concern," says expert Pascal Leroy. "If we don't recycle the rare materials they contain, we'll have to do more mining."
