Tillmann Prüfer is a member of the editor-in-chief of “Zeit-Magazin”.
We live in a throwaway society. We throw away everything possible and impossible. I just read in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” that our environment is now so permeated by microplastics that you can hardly find anything that doesn’t contain it. We even breathe in microplastics, we eat and drink them. So we live in a way in and with our waste, at some point we will probably consist of waste.
In addition, there is the less well-known problem of the non-throwaway society, the so-called “storage society”. We store everything possible and impossible in cellars and drawers – where it then rots. In Germany alone, 200 million broken cell phones are stashed away.
This is a problem in a number of ways. If a device is in a drawer, it cannot be recycled. In addition, a mobile phone contains more gold than a lump of gold ore, for example. So it would be more lucrative for gold mining if we melted down cellphones instead of the soil in whole swaths of land. Mobile phones also contain all sorts of rare earths, for which you have to etch away mountains with acid or something. So not handing in your mobile phone for recycling is no longer just careless, but an environmental crime.
A large part of these 200 million mobile phones are stored in my household. I’ve never thrown away a cell phone since I’ve owned one, I don’t know why, I just can’t. I don’t throw anything away, at least not if it’s electronic. It’s a multi-step process. If it’s not broken, I think to myself: It’s still good, I can use it again, the cell phone. Like if my new one breaks.
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Of course, that never happens, instead another cell phone is added at some point. I now have a small radio museum. The slightly damaged first iPhone is represented there as well as a Siemens S4. Anyone who can still relate to this name can consider themselves a boomer.
More columns by Tillmann Prüfer
I don’t just feel this way with cell phones. I also have trouble disposing of old radios. I even have one with an AM receiver. I’ve read that medium wave is a technology that will still work even if large parts of the infrastructure fail, because the waves can be transmitted hundreds of kilometers.
Some European countries (not Germany, of course) would therefore keep this technology in reserve. You don’t throw it away. So when the big blackout comes, it’s time for me and my battery radio again. I’ll let you know what’s going on.
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