Explore the lifecycle of things

- In school, we learn about the life cycles of different living things. You might remember learning about how crawling caterpillars become flying butterflies, or how swimming tadpoles become hopping frogs. Learning about the life cycles of living things helps us understand the conditions needed to make life thrive, but have you ever considered the lifecycle of your cell phone? Or the clothes you're wearing? For example, did you know that one garbage truck worth of clothing is burned or dumped into a landfill every second? One of the reasons that happens is because low quality garments are often discarded after just seven or eight wears, that's not a very long life for things that take a lot of resources to create. The life cycles of our things have enormous impacts on our environment and all the living things we care about and depend upon. So, let's explore the lifecycle of our things together, and start with our cell phones. We'll specifically look at them through the lens of the energy used throughout their life. Our electronics depend on precious metals that are often mined from the Earth. Once the materials are mined, they're manufactured into cell phones. The phones are packaged and shipped to you or a local store. The phones are then charged so we can use them, and once we're done with them, the phones are either put into a drawer and never seen again, thrown away or recycled through the manufacturer. So while we really only deal with the phone once it's in our hands, it has quite a life before us that requires a lot of energy and an afterlife. So where's most of the energy used in the lifecycle of a cell phone? What do you think? It might surprise you to know that most of the energy used during the cell phone's life comes from the mining and manufacturing processes. We do use energy once the phone is in our hands, but that amount is one-10th to one-fifth the amount of energy that's used to actually make the phone. Now, what does that mean for us? The most impactful step we can take is to keep our phones a little longer, which results in using less energy and fewer natural resources. The average person keeps their phone for about 18 months. Let's extend that and replace the battery instead of getting an entirely new phone. When the time comes for you to get another phone, please properly recycle your old one. Many cell phone manufacturers will give you credit towards your new phone if you turn in your old one. Also, check if your workplace has a program to recycle electronic waste. We just examined the lifecycle of a cell phone, but this process applies to all of the things in our lives, clothes, shoes and electronics. Look around your homes and workplaces with a new lens. A lens that takes the entire lifecycle of the product into account. Let's get creative and find ways to extend the life of our things and reduce the impact on our shared environment.