By DARCY BENDER, 2/8/2016. Did you ever wonder what happens to your old cell phone when you recycle it? Sometimes electronics are immediately shredded into small pieces and sent out to be further sorted and processed into raw materials. But some phones are repaired and resold or salvaged for parts to fix another phone. And one epicenter in the world of pre-owned cell phones is the market at Huaqiang in Shenzhen. People talked about it as if it were one market, but it is actually an entire neighborhood of buildings filled with all things related to electronics. Not to mention, the countless stalls and individual vendors selling everything from drones to power cables on the streets.
I had originally been interested in the markets because of the maker spaces I had heard about. Maker spaces, sometimes called fab labs, are places for people interested in making and repairing physical objects (often electronics-related, though not necessarily) to gather and collaborate and use tools provided by the space. Sometimes they are for-profit sometimes not, but they are always a hub for innovation, creative thinking and rapid prototyping which are essential capabilities in the world of electronics start-ups. The one I visited was recommended by Fu Na and is a partnership with Shenzhen University. The student working there said many people use the space to repair their own phones and they are about to start offering classes on the subject.
After the maker space, I headed out to find some second-hand markets. The first one had many like-new refurbished phones, especially iPhones and Samsungs, that the shop owners insisted were brand new. Off to the side there was one row of repair shops with several men diligently soldering. At this market, the men said their customers were mostly individuals dropping off one phone at a time. The next market was a bit more off the beaten track and also was selling a few phones with cracked screens that were obviously second-hand. They were also selling machinery used to repair phones.
A bit further down, was a 6 story building completely filled with people – both selling things from stalls and customers as well as people selling food and drinks and maintenance staff. On each floor of this building, all of the stalls around the edge were for repair. It was astonishing the number of people working side by side in some of the stalls. Some of these shops said they also took bulk orders of repairs and they generally specialize in one brand of phone and one type of repair. As we asked around, many of the workers came from all over China not just within Guangdong province.
This space also sold all the supplies needed to start your own second-hand market stall including the brand new iPhone boxes and shrink wrap to make your “like new” refurbished phone indistinguishable from one right off the factory line.
Finally, we visited a second-hand market selling the really old models and very badly damaged phones. Here the shop owners buy the phones in bulk units, usually from Hong Kong we were told, where they have arrived from all over the world. Some of these phones were purchased just for parts, but others are repaired and sent to other parts of China and to Africa where the market for cheaper phones is strong.
Repairing and reusing phones is a much more energy, time and resource efficient way of finding new uses for old phones than shredding them, sorting them and melting them down into raw materials that still need to be processed further to make new products. I wish the US had a stronger repair ethic especially when it comes to cell phones so that this chain did not have to include crossing oceans. A repair ethic also means curbing the desire for only fresh off the factory line which I think could lead to a thriving market of customization and innovation in phone products like those that were highlighted in the ‘Maker Maker’ exhibit in the Biennale.
