A few days before the UN climate summit, young people, NGOs, and companies all over the world joined together to take stock of our priorities, with the latest IPCC report on the oceans providing context. There’s no denying it anymore: It is high time for us to take action –and demand that our governments and economic stakeholders do the same. With this in mind, Back Market participated in this joyful parade of signs on Friday, September 20, 2019.
Smartphones have become almost indispensable in our modern way of life. And there is a good chance you have one if you are reading this article. Unfortunately, these poor beasts live only 18 months on average, while they could easily reach the ripe old age of five if we took more care of them. But how can you keep your smartphone longer, I hear you ask? Start with this:
Our poor smartphones often lead dangerous lives. They are banged, dropped or exposed to harsh external conditions. The world is a hostile place to these fragile animals. When you get your phone, consider wrapping it in a shell and putting a protective film or glass over the screen. It will save you from losing it in its first accident. Furthermore, this simple practice will greatly increase its value when you come to resell it.
If a smartphone survives being dropped, then it is usually bad charging management that affects it after a few months. If you want to keep yours longer, unplug it when it reaches 100% (or slightly before) and wait 10-15% before reconnecting it. The time between charges also affects the battery life. Remember to turn off mobile data, put it in airplane mode or turn it off when you’re not using it, and adjust the brightness of the display according to the lighting.
Like any electronic device, smartphones hate extreme temperatures. Avoid leaving it in the sun to prevent wear of components and swelling of the battery. Same goes for the cold. Also beware of wet places if you want to avoid inconvenient short circuits.
It may be obvious, but remember to close applications that you do not use and keep open those you use regularly in a short period of time, since opening a program can consume a lot of energy. These two simple practices will prevent your phone from running out of steam by hurtling along unnecessarily at full speed.
To not find yourself in the annoying situation where your smartphone takes three years to open Google Maps, or overheats as soon as you want to send the tiniest GIF. Regularly sort your phone’s applications, data and cache memory. In short, everything you no longer use. And then when freeing up space across the board is no longer enough, save your data and reset the phone. It may sound radical, but it works.
By following these tips, it is possible to make your smartphone last five years.
And for your new phone, why not buy a refurbished model? You reduce your ecological footprint by 80% and you will find the models are of the same quality but up to 50% cheaper.
Earth Overshoot Day is calculated every year by the NGO Global Footprint Network and the WWF. This year it falls on July 29, 2019. Yes, that was two weeks ago. So we have a challenge for you, and it concerns our common ecological footprint.
Since the very first and very clunky cell phones arrived on the scene, they always served as status symbols. They were scarce and expensive machines that continued to reflect varying degrees of wealth and social caché (depending on the model you had, of course) even after Nokia made them more accessible.
Attention, citizens of the planet (in danger)! (drum roll) Samsung is currently announcing its new eco-friendly policy.
In this holiday season of shopping and feasts, Back Market suggests keeping the environment in mind as you make your purchases! A few pieces of advice to help the planet won’t cost you a penny, so let’s consider the environmental perspective on a few products and the way we use them. Ready, set, GO! Wait, no, come back…
Upcycling is booming. Officially known as “surcyclage” in proper French (not the most inspiring of names), upcycling means recycling used materials or products by turning them into new materials or products. The new products have to be of superior quality or usefulness. That’s where the word “up” comes in: recycling to give something a higher value. Today Back Market is going to tell you about 4 exciting upcycling projects!
Back Market is apparently not alone in being a fan of reconditioning ?
Tesla, for those not yet familiar with it, is Elon Musk’s company specializing in electric automobiles. While its first two models were produced on a small scale and sold at exorbitant prices, the Tesla Model 3 is the Californian manufacturer’s first mass-produced model, which will help to reduce the purchase price. Over 100,000 units have been produced since the summer of 2017.
Every day, every hour, every minute, and even every second, billions of e-mail messages crisscross the globe, bouncing from one inbox to another at lightning speed. In all, they amount to approximately 205 billion messages annually, according to a 2015 report from the European Commission, a figure that could rise to 246 billion by 2019 according to the same sources – and that doesn’t even include spam. In other words, e-mail represents a giant step forward for better, faster communication technology, but it’s disastrous in terms of environmental impact, in the sense that all this correspondence uses a great deal of energy, generating greenhouse gases.
What happens when the Internet endangers our environment?