Situated sustainability for mobile phones

It is expected that the worldwide sales of mobile phones will exceed one billion by the year 2009. American consumers use their phones for only an average of 17.5 months before replacing them and despite the global proliferation of phones, only 5% of phones are ever recycled, thus leading to a massive potential problem of e-waste. This trend is refereed as disposable technology paradigm, and it is visible in increasingly ubiquitous devices, such as laptops and portable mp3 players, that are replaced within a few years. Five design challenges for mobile phones and their environments include making information more available, resources should be made available that are useful and easily accessible, develop novel alternatives to disposal, create reasons for keeping to foster a longer lifespan and support upgrading and extension of technologies. The problem of e-waste is increasing on a rapid pace all over the world, hence there is need to develop strategies to cope up with the challenge.