Recycling e-waste - Good for business and the environment | DW Documentary 

Well said.

👌🏼👍🏼🙂💯💯💯

100%

Good luck with that in corporate America where the all mighty dollar rules all. Right to repair shouldn't even be a thing being discussed but this is how far gone you guys are in the US. To you it may seem normal, to the rest of us, it's insanity.

@@PraetorianAU Believe me, being American myself, I know the right to repair should be normal, but big tech companies just want money from impulsive (often younger) consumers rather than serve their people!

Unfortunately 😢

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​@@DWDocumentaryIt's great to have uplifting news periodically!

Try also "Democracy Now" and "Beau of the fifth column" (comentary/context).

@@MrChillerNo1 cheers

@@tristanboyle4450 You're welcome. Part of my daily routine Democracy now's Headlines (~10min), and all the beau's of the day (~30min.) If Im interested in specifics (interviews, focus points) DW and Democracy now. Granted they all are more to the left of mainstream, but they all do excellent reports. The choice what to report on is always biased, no matter the news. The important question is: "Does it inform you, or does it inflame you?" These sources inform. Have a good one!

Yep. Fairphones are a great alternative for this reason.

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are they any good?

Agree

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B-But... THAT would negatively effect corporate profits. Oh-no!! 😐

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🙄😏🥴😉🤷🏽‍♂️

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Governments must implement legislation to force companies to do that. Voters (in democratic countries) must pressure their governments to do that. Otherwise, no company with that business model can be successful competing in the current global market. All incentives push them toward products with short lifespans that are annoying/ impossible for the consumer to repair.

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7 years? I've replaced most of mine within 2-3 years due to some fault *other* than the battery. Or simply from them being obsolete software-wise. You'll end up paying for the replaceable battery in the long run. Devices will be thicker, more complicated mechanically, prone to bad contacts etc.

@@mandrakethemadcoder Bad contracts? You have no understanding of cell phones outside the US, then? Unlocked phones are the norm in every other developed nation in the world.

@@FlyingDwarfman Contacts, not contracts.

Fairphone.

@@katejudson8907 hopefully they stick to their marketing plan and not going to be like apple's and samsung's

Me too. I have a very basic ASUS that has been running opensource programs perfectly for 9 years!

S8 6 years

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I'm a teacher and advise a Content Creator Club led by students. For purposes of that club, I love to collect videos that fit various themes. DW content has a tendency to almost immediately go in my "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle an Beyond" playlist as examples for students of short-form documentaries (

That 2-yrs figure is highly variable. And it appears to be based on an old 2017 study from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands which is based on even older solar panel tech from even earlier in the 2010 era. Even so, the study's given 2-yr figure was a "worst case" scenario. Panels back then were in the 17% efficiency but panels now are now pushing 23% efficiency. Moreover, most commercial solar farms now have 1-axis (tilt) sun tracking which increases energy capture some huge 10% to 20%. In a sunnier climate (not Netherlands or Germany), the energy payback may be in months or even quicker with sun tilt tracking during the summer. If the time frame is in months, then the time of year also plays a role as summer has much more solar energy than winter. Given the dire global carbon crisis and global energy transition, solar is one of those area of renewable tech receiving huge amounts of research investment now. For instance, the cost of solar has dropped a staggering 90% since 2010. Furthermore, utility-scale solar is the cheapest form of energy available now at some 3-cents per kWh (unsubsidized) and still falling. The world has never seen electrical energy this cheap. The sun's ludicrously cosmic huge abundant clean power is an easy choice for direct capture. That solar panel farm shown at 3:48 is not usual. Which is why it was highlighted in this new story. 10-years is far too short to be changing out all panels - something else is going on there as well. Consider that solar manufacturers have some 25 year warranty that their panel will not degrade beyond -0.45% capacity per year (linear). Solar panel PV manufacturers do not give warranties lightly and their terms are based on rigorous testing and statistical analysis. A bad warranty can directly impact their bottom line and bring down the company's finances and reputation. As they shown in the new story, those used solar farm panels can be donated or sold to less high demanding scenarios like residential or small commercial solar. Many urban locations have a local distributor who specializes in used panels. Used panels will be half or less the cost of a new panel and the old panel still retains some 80% to 90+% of their original power capacity. Other technologies coming up are non-silicon based Perovskite solar cells. Manufacturing Perovskite cells uses a fraction of the energy of traditional silicon based cells. The Perovskite material is literally "ink jet printed" onto a substrate with much less heating involved. Perovskites are tantalizing area of solar tech as it naturally provides higher efficiencies. Its in the 25% to 30% range because of their innate characteristics and the ease of building multi-layer cells that capture a wider bandwidth of the light spectrum. Normal silicon cells prefer lower-energy photons in the "redder" end of the spectrum while higher energy "bluer" photons will just reflect or cause heating.

@@beyondfossil Interesting response. I was struggling with the maths in the documentary though. I can't get my head around that the narrator at the beginning of the documentary when the balcony buyer collects his panels that each recycled panel can produce 600w each, then when the panels are being removed from the mountainside, narrator says that these ones can only produce 235w (which to me, sounds more correct than 600w, so whether they're somehow mis selling to balcony buyers). Then the waste guy was saying that even if they've only lost 5% efficiency, they're still good enough for balcony buyers, which if they can get for 60 euros each is a steal but I doubt that price, but I still feel that the amount of money the company would need to invest to replace the panels to cover a 5% loss is too much (unless ofcourse the modern efficiency increases and if they install tilting panels really will reap rewards), but just sounded shady and probably a way for that company to somehow get granted government renewable money by saying they were installing more panels on spots that were already existing). I was surprised to hear that wasting panels was a thing, having them shredded, how has that ever been a practise in the past? Surely you could just a pile of panels at side of road with 'Free' sign on and save you having to transport to waste/recycle sites if they didn't sell them in the past. Anyhow, anyone know where I can get 60 quid panels in the UK?

Judging India by just few minute or videos ? Well done , but then should I assume you all eat cockroaches and earthworms by a few minute of clips ?

It's just you, you clearly don't understand free market and competition in business.

@@honor9lite1337 Free market like the gouvernment stepping in to save buisinesses from bankruptcy?

@@ivar-the-terrible Read up dude. For the labour, materials recycled from each individual panel the recycling isn't economically viable. Why do you think the producers of the panels do not recycle those themselves??? The labour alone and amount you'd have to recycle to turn a decent profit simply is not there. Besides, green energy? Can you tell me the carbon footprint while mining and producing so called green energy? Tesla is a primes example, have you actually seen cobalt and lithium mines??

​@@ivar-the-terrible"mUh sHiLl nPc!!!!!!! 😡😡😡" 😂🤦🏿‍♂️

You are assuming that with current technology. Probably engineers will come up with better materials

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