We all know the story about the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, which was a big disaster. So now, Samsung is planning to reuse it for future sales. A month before, the South Korean organization unveiled an upgraded version of the Note 7 in its domestic market as a part of the recycling effort.
The environmental group Greenpeace said that Samsung had “shown an effort at solving the problem by choosing to recycle over disposal,” but also stated that it should “also examine its smartphone project model of frequently releasing many different models.”
Samsung Electronics, on March 27 said that it had “decided on three environmentally friendly handling principles of recycling and disposal of recalled Galaxy Note 7 units.”
The first principle states that smartphones should be seen as reusable phones or rental phones where applicable. The second principle states that salvageable components should be detached for reuse. The last principle states that processes such as metal extraction shall be performed using environmentally friendly methods.
The components such as the OLED display module, memory semiconductor, and camera module, which are reusable, are detached through an eco-friendly process by the Samsung company. These isolated parts or remaining parts can be used as a service material or for selling.
Samsung also said that it would contract third-party companies to extract precious metals, such as copper, nickel, gold, and silver, as it is expected that the recycling process will result in the retrieval of about 157 tons of gold, silver, cobalt, and copper.
Samsung also plans to join the EU’s R&D and test efforts to develop new eco-friendly processing methods.