We’ll get through 19 mobile phones in a lifetime

SOME of us can’t wait to upgrade our mobile phone to the latest model. Others will happily keep theirs until it gives up the ghost or they break it.

But, whether they’re on pay-as-you-go or a contract, it appears the average adult will use 19 phones over a lifetime.

Researchers also say we lose our device an average of 0.8 times a year – meaning we mislay them more than 50 times as adults, though there are many of us who might say the figure is a little higher.

A poll of 2,000 mobile phone owners found the typical person will get a new handset every three years and four months – equating to 19 devices over the typical UK adult lifespan of 63 years. This does not take into account the phones users owned as children.

The average user also has two mobiles tucked away in drawers, and 13 per cent have four or more.

It also emerged only 29 per cent have recycled their old phone. Forty-one per cent confessed they don’t know what to do with old devices. The poll also found 48 per cent will hang on to old devices ‘in case of emergencies’, while 34 per cent will hand them on to family and friends.

And, despite being able to earn some cash from doing so, only 27 per cent have traded in or part-exchanged a handset.

Some 67 per cent of respondents said they have replaced a phone that’s still in working order. Twenty-six per cent have simply taken advantage of a free upgrade. Despite 46 per cent agreeing it’s easy to recycle an old mobile phone, 47 per cent don’t actually know how to go about it, the research by OnePoll found.

Only 28 per cent of the phone users polled have taken the sustainable route of buying a second-hand phone.

Lars Silberbauer of HMD Global, which makes Nokia phones and commissioned the research to mark the launch of its phone subscription service, said: ‘Smartphones make a significant contribution to e-waste. By ensuring they are recycled, we can keep devices out of landfill.’