Article with Refurbly in the it-sustainability magazine :
In connection with the Government giving the Procurement Authority directives on investing in circular procurement, including an increase of SEK 15 million next year, mobile recycler Refurbly is launching a solution that makes it easy for municipalities and regions to buy in more sustainable mobile phones.
Instead of old mobile phones being littered in a basement, we buy them in and refurbish them. Around 1.5 million Swedes have one or more mobile phones at home that are not used, many phones are left in cupboards at home because you don't know how to recycle them in the best way, says David Lundgren Fetah, founder Refurbly.
With this solution, we hope to be able to contribute to a green transition in the public sector through used but at the same time refurbished mobile phones. A true circular economy is achieved by creating incentives for users to participate in recycling. I think you have a strong advantage here in terms of branding.
From 2022, the procurement authority will receive increased funding from the Government to strengthen existing support for circular procurement and strengthen resources for guidance in the area. One area where circular procurement is relevant is for mobile phones. Every year around 3.2 million phones are sold in Sweden, which generates over 250,000 tonnes of waste. At the same time, conflicts and crime are increasing over valuable minerals for mobile phones, such as Cobalt in the Congo. Mobile phones are a major environmental culprit, a mobile phone weighing 226 grams creates a whopping 86 kilos of waste during production.
Earlier this year, the Procura+ project was launched, a project in which Malmö, Oslo, Helsinki and Copenhagen will work together to push for increased sustainability in their suppliers, such as when it comes to how the procurement of smartphones looks, for example. Their vision is to have developed harmonized conditions for their mobile procurement by 2025. This is to ensure that the entire supply chain is sustainable with good working conditions, but also that recycling and reuse are included. It is in such contexts Refurbly launches its solution for buying mobiles from and selling mobiles to municipalities, regions and authorities.
We can offer municipalities and regions a good overall solution for environmentally friendly mobile phones. The four metropolitan regions annually purchase 30,000-35,000 mobile phones for their municipal employees, if they were to purchase refurbished phones, instead of brand new ones, they would save 2,500 to 3,000 tons of waste, says David Lundgren Fetah
