So my old phone case was beginning to fall apart. This was entirely my own fault – I picked it apart at the corners until bits started falling off as a nervous tick. So after months of thinking about it and feeling guilty about making any sort of purchase, I finally bought another one and I love it, mostly because it’s relatively sustainable. Is it perfect? No. So today I thought I’d take you through my choice, and see what you think.
Alongside the new phones that come out, new cases come out too. If a phone changes size (think the iPhone13 compared to the iPhone6) or shape (the new double screened phones), then you’re encouraged to get a case to protect it from the elements. This means that we buy phone cases pretty often – let’s say you have a phone from age 16 to age 70, that means you get through, on average, 27 phones. Even if you manage to reuse a couple of cases, which you probably won’t, that is still a lot of cases, and it’s not just you. In fact, more than 1 billion phone cases are produced every single year.
So what factors did I want to take into account when buying a phone case? First of all, what is the case made of? We know that plastic takes a long time to break down, so I wanted to avoid that. Other materials like leather I dislike from a look point of view, but also from an animal rights point of view. Fake leather is also not what I want, and takes a very long time to biodegrade. Silicone also takes a long time to decompose, mostly because it is a very durable material. So, ideally I want a phone case that has been made with a material that breaks down easily and potentially that has already been recycled.
Then, we’ve got what happens to the case once I can’t use it anymore. So, most phone cases seem to go to landfill – I can’t find any statistics on this but when I look for recycling options there aren’t many that are really easy, and phone cases are often made of mixed materials, so I would assume that a lot of people just ditch the phone case straight into landfill. There are recycling schemes out there though. For example CASETiFY and Terracycle have phone case recycling methods, as do many of the brands that sell sustainable phone cases. So, I wanted my phone case to be part of one of these recycling options.
Finally, the look. This should probably be higher up the list, but I wanted to prioritise the materials and recycling options of the case before looking at the styles I like. My only real criteria was that I wanted something that screams ‘environmentalist’ because that way I might not need to say it all the time… I also wanted a phone case that didn’t clash with the colour of my phone, which is purple. Other than that, I didn’t really have many requirements.
So what did I finally settle on? Well, I bought a Pela case that is decorated by mushrooms. I chose this one because a) I loved the design, b) their cases are compostable and c) they offer a recycling scheme. Now, this isn’t absolutely perfect. Pela are a Canadian company, and their recycling scheme (Pela360) only runs in Canada, so as a UK customer, I have to send my case back to Canada when I am no longer using it. Obviously, this has it’s own carbon footprint which is not ideal, however they are expanding to more countries as we speak, so hopefully this scheme will become more accessible quickly. But, overall, I’m pretty happy with this purchase because I think it’s one of the only sustainable options that I genuinely like and that will protect my phone.
So, my previous case (the purple one) was also a Pela case, so I am in the process of returning it to Pela so that they can recycle it. Let me know what you think – are there other brands of phone case that you like? Do you think there is anything else to consider when we buy phone cases? Let me know!
Waste Makes Waste 