We set up our repurposing scheme during the pandemic because we saw that it would be a great way to get electronic devices to those who needed them with little capital costs. Since then, many generous people – and institutions – have donated their surplus devices to us and allowed us to continue getting phones, tablets and computers to those in need.

Here are some of the benefits we believe our scheme has had in that time:

• Over 450 ‘old’ devices put back into use

• Work for over 30 young people

• 23 Tonnes of CO2 saved from the atmosphere

• Gold, precious metals, and rare earth elements back in circulation

Our records show that, to date, we’ve successfully repurposed 188 laptops, 12 desktops, 193 smartphones, 46 tablets, and 28 basic phones!

As a digital inclusion specialist, making over 450 devices available to people who can’t afford to buy them is reason enough to run our “repurposing” project – but there’s so much more to it.

Young People

We have been able to offer more than 30 young people work experience and part-time work to help them learn technical and business skills, and the “soft” skills that are essential in any workplace. Lots of them also help clients learn how to use their donated device effectively and safely.  Many of those young people find more mainstream working environments difficult or overwhelming. Our space allows for working in different ways and we have a flexible team who are well-used to living with and managing neuro-diversity in all its forms.

Environmental Impact – Carbon

Keeping devices going longer saves on the carbon emissions from their manufacture by delaying the time before new ones need to be bought.  It’s not a very straightforward calculation to do, so we had to research for some guidelines.

From this study it’s estimated that the manufacture and supply of digital devices embody carbon emissions in the order of 200 kgCO2e per laptop and 50 kgCO2e per smartphone.

Of course, by extending the life of a device we don’t directly save all those emissions, but we do spread it over a longer usable life thereby reducing the requirement to buy a new device.

There are a few different online sources for the average lifespan of devices here, here and here so we’ve made a rough calculation and we’re suggesting that we can extend a laptop’s life from five to seven years and a smartphone from four years to six.

There are similar figures for other sorts of device which we also repurpose from time to time.

We have calculated the carbon saved as “embodied carbon” x “additional use years“/”average expected life in years”

That means for smartphones we believe we’re saving 50kg CO2e x 2 extra years / 4 years = 25kgCO2e per device which goes back out to someone to use.  So far, 192 Smartphones have been sent out for reuse which is 4800 kgCO2e.

There are similar sorts of figures for other sorts of device which we also repurpose from time to time.

So applying those calculations to all the devices we’ve given to people to use, it’s approximately 23,000 kg – or 23 tonnes  CO2e saved.  Wow!

Environmental Impact – Other elements

But it’s not just about carbon.  All electronic devices contain a variety of precious metals which are essential for the function of devices – but very rare in nature.  They are usually mined from the earth’s crust.

It’s quite difficult to find accurate numbers of how much of this material can be recovered from electronic waste (WEEE) but this article we found suggests that in one tonne (1000 kg) of WEEE waste there’s an estimated 200g of gold, of which perhaps 28g (14%) is currently recoverable.  Other precious metals are also recoverable but in much lower quantities.

Smartphones typically weigh about 200g, tablets 500g and laptops about 2000g.

Of the devices we get gifted, we’re able to repurpose about half of them – the rest are immediately recycled.  Our record show that we’ve recycled about 225 phones, 40 tablets and 90 laptops.  Combined, these would comprise about 245kg of WEEE waste containing about 7.5g of recoverable gold.  This might not sound like much but we should think about how it compares to traditional mining processes.  Again, getting good information is tricky, but it appears that this is about the same amount of gold likely to be in 1000 kg of high grade primary gold ore.

Get involved

If you think that helping the environment, helping young people with work skills and supporting people who can’t currently get online is a good reason to help us continue our work you can do so donating your old devices or by making a financial donation to us so that we can buy spare parts, cleaning materials and the tools we need.

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*This article was updated on 19th September 2024 to reflect more accurate repurposing data (originally published 16th September 2024)