Breaking the E-Waste Cycle: Fairphone’s Self-Repairable Smartphone

Dutch social enterprise Fairphone aims to tackle the growing issue of electronic waste by creating a smartphone designed for self-repair. Co-founder Bas van Abel demonstrates the ease with which eight components, including the camera, can be removed and replaced by users. Fairphone encourages people to fix their phones instead of discarding them, contributing to the reduction of the world’s fastest-growing waste stream – electronic waste.

The company’s Android smartphones are built to be exchanged, customized, and repaired, promoting a longer device lifespan and a decrease in e-waste. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that only 20% of the approximately 50 million tonnes of electronic waste produced globally each year is recycled. The WEEE Forum reports that in 2022 alone, 5.3 billion mobile phones were discarded, contributing to the mounting e-waste problem. Fairphone’s approach aims to disrupt the prevalent trend of short device lifespans and frequent replacements.