Not surprisingly, one of the toughest challenges that Samsung has faced yet include the disposal and recycling of all the Note 7 units, which amount to 4.3 million, or around 730,000 kg of material.
The concerns rose primarily when the environmental non-profit Greenpeace released a statement, where it raised concerns over the treatment with these products, which include rare metals such as gold, cobalt and tungsten which can be recovered rather than being thrown off and made to damage the environment.
In a statement released to Reuters, Samsung has claimed to be working on a way to make sure it completes the process with as less damage to the environment as possible. With the phones not being refurbished or resold further, concerns regarding the disposal process are quite valid.
Here’s Samsung’s statement in full:
“We recognize the concerns around the discontinuation of the Galaxy Note 7 > and are currently reviewing possible options that can minimize the > environmental impact of the recall in full compliance with relevant local > environmental regulations.”
Samsung is already making efforts in all its major markets to recover the phones which it originally sold.
For the record, Samsung has a pretty tame record with dealing with product recalls. It, for instance, dealt with its 150,000 recalled Anycall phones by setting them on fire, which is about the worst way of dealing with it.
But with reportedly a ton of tungsten, silver, and a hundred kilograms of gold said to be recoverable from the phones, not to mention the backlash it has already received, means that such a move will hardly be okay now.
