Nokia N96
Nokia N96 (Nokia, 2009a).
Nokia N96's kick stand (Nokia, 2009b).
At the moment Nokia is the most environmentally friendly mobile phone manufacturer according to Greenpeace, with hitting the target for reduced carbon emissions and their take back after use policy (Greenpeace, 2009a). But looking in more detail Nokia only recycles 3 – 5% of these phones and only uses some of these plastic parts for packaging. (Greenpeace, 2009b).
Nokia. (2009c).
Take a look at this chart that Nokia have researched to find where all the phones in New York are and you can see that 60% of phones are at the moment obsolete and even 7% of phones still being thrown away. If Nokia used the supply chain principle, reduce variability of risk, to motivate users to reuse / recycle the phone, the number of phones being thrown away should disappear and the 60% should fall. To do this rather than just letting people drop off the unwanted phone they should have a trade-in discount on a new phone. A bit like what Vodafone do in the UK their buy back scheme where they value your phone you are sending back and they deduct the price from your monthly bill. (Vodafone Group, 2006). This made me send back my old phone and I got £50 for an old Nokia 3210! As I found out, this will encourage new phone buyers to send back their old phone will help to reduce the environmental impact of all phones including the N96.
From personal experience of owning a N96, for 6 months, the phone is not built to last as it is very vulnerable with its duel slide feature and its kick stand and many other parts which make it very easy to break. So far I have sent back my phone once to be repaired and one time to be replaced because it was unfixable.
If the design principle, minimize information content was used while designing the N96 they will of left out the kick stand and the slide feature making it less prone to breaking. A good example of this is the Apple’s iphone where the information content is much lower. PC World has tested the toughness of the iphone (drop and scratch test) and their verdict was “There's no need to coddle this sexy little device” (Butterfield E, 2007) because it was resilient to all the tests.
One person even left his iphone on the roof of his car by accident. It fell on to the road and got run over by a 18 wheeled lorry, despite all of this abuse it still worked and did not even suffer a scratch on the screen (King P, 2008).
So you can see that these phones will have a very long life span due to the low information content but you take the N96. A friend of mine had the N96 but ran it over with a 5 tonne tractor. This totalled the phone (screen smashed, slider didn’t work, and did not even turn on) this is extreme but not as heavy as an 18 wheeled lorry.
You can see from this, if the N96 had minimized information content it would have dramatically increased the lifespan of the phone and by doing that, energy is not being wasted due to fixing or replacing the phone consistently. This intern will reduce the total environmental impact of the Nokia N96.
Works cited.
Butterfield E. (2007). How tough is the iphone? Retrieved May 22, 2009, from:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/133636/how_tough_is_the_iphone.html
Greenpeace. (2009a). How the companies line up. Retrieved May 18, 2009, from:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/how-the-companies-line-up
Greenpeace. (2009b). Guide to Greener Electronics – Nokia. Retrieved May 18, 2009, from:
http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/nokia-guide-to-greener-electronics-11.pdf
King P. (2008). iPhone ran over by Semi but still works. Retrieved May 22, 2009, from:
http://www.iphonestalk.com/iphone-ran-over-by-semi-but-still-works
Nokia. (2009a). Nokia N96. Retrieved May 19, 2009, from:
http://europe.nokia.com/A41466357#/gallery/images/02
Nokia. (2009b). Nokia N96. Retrieved May 19, 2009, from:
http://europe.nokia.com/A41466357#/gallery/images/04
Nokia. (2009c). Take-back and recycling. Retrieved May 22, 2009, from:
http://www.nokia.com/environment/our-responsibility/environmental-reporting/products-and-services/take-back-and-recycling
Vodafone Group. (2006). Phone trade in and recycling. Retrieved May 22, 2009, from:
http://www.vbbs.co.uk/01_overview.html
