Three years ago I had what I can only describe as the most humiliating moment of my adult life, and it happened at a sustainability meetup in Charlotte. Not exactly where you'd expect public embarrassment, right? But there I was, sitting on this panel about making better consumer choices, feeling pretty good about myself because we'd just installed solar panels and started composting. Someone in the audience asked what phone I was using, so I pulled out my iPhone – maybe six months old, replacing a perfectly good phone that I'd upgraded because I wanted a better camera for the kids' photos.
This woman in the front row looked at my phone and asked, super calmly, "Do you know anything about the working conditions of the people who made that? Or mined the materials for the battery?"
I didn't. I had absolutely no clue. Here I am, this suburban dad who's been blogging about sustainable living, and I couldn't tell you the first thing about where my phone actually came from or who got hurt making it possible. The whole room went quiet. I mumbled something about researching it later and wanted to crawl under the table.
That moment stuck with me for months. My wife got tired of hearing about it, honestly. But it made me realize that all the LED bulbs and rain barrels in the world don't mean much if I'm still supporting systems that exploit people. Environmental justice and social justice aren't separate things – they're completely connected.
So I started digging into electronics supply chains, which, let me tell you, is a rabbit hole you don't come back from unchanged. The average smartphone has over thirty different elements sourced from dozens of countries. Each step involves real people whose working conditions range from decent to absolutely horrifying.
The mining part is particularly brutal. Most of the world's cobalt – which is essential for the batteries in our phones and laptops – comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where child labor is documented in many mines. Workers, including kids, dig by hand in dangerous conditions without proper safety equipment. Indonesian tin mines collapse regularly, killing miners. Gold extraction involves mercury that poisons workers and contaminates water supplies.
But it's not just mining. I found reports about electronics assembly workers in China working fourteen-hour shifts, six days a week, exposed to toxic chemicals that cause respiratory problems and skin conditions. One documentary I watched showed workers who'd developed arthritis in their hands by age twenty-five from repeating the same tiny motions thousands of times per day.
For a while I felt completely paralyzed by this information. What was I supposed to do – throw my phone in a drawer and go back to landlines? That's not realistic when you work in IT and have three kids involved in various activities. But I couldn't just pretend I didn't know this stuff anymore either.
Eventually I figured out that the answer isn't perfection, it's just doing better than I was before. The most ethical electronic device is usually the one you already own. Manufacturing accounts for about 85% of a smartphone's total carbon footprint, so keeping your current phone for an extra year or two has way more impact than buying a "greener" new model.
I made myself a rule after that conference disaster – no upgrades unless something is actually broken beyond repair. My current phone is going on four years old now. Yeah, the battery doesn't last as long, and it doesn't have the fancy night mode camera that all the newer phones have. But it works fine, and every month I keep using it means I'm not contributing to demand for new mining and manufacturing.
When something does break, I try repair first. My laptop had an unfortunate encounter with my youngest daughter's juice box last year – apple juice everywhere, completely fried the keyboard. Instead of immediately ordering a new one like I would have before, I found this local repair shop run by this guy who's amazing with electronics. Cost me about $150 to fix versus $800 for a new laptop, and it works perfectly.
The repair thing has become kind of addictive. There's something satisfying about fixing stuff instead of throwing it away. I've learned to replace phone screens using YouTube tutorials, though I definitely cracked one worse trying to fix it myself. The kids think it's cool that Dad can fix things, and it's teaching them that devices don't have to be disposable.
But sometimes you really do need to buy new electronics, and that's where it gets complicated. There are companies trying to do better, though you have to wade through a lot of marketing nonsense to find the ones actually making a difference.
Fairphone is probably the best example. They're a European company making smartphones with modular, repairable designs while working to source materials ethically. Their phones aren't as sleek as iPhones or as powerful as Samsung flagships, but they're designed to last and be fixable. I've been following their progress for a couple years now, and they're transparent about their supply chain in ways that Apple and Google just aren't.
Framework makes laptops with a similar philosophy – completely modular and repairable. You can swap out individual components when they break or become obsolete instead of replacing the whole machine. Their CEO did this presentation I watched where he disassembled an entire laptop in about two minutes using just a screwdriver. Compare that to modern MacBooks where you need special tools and risk breaking everything just to replace the battery.
The bigger companies have made some progress, though it's hard to tell how much is real change versus public relations. Apple started using recycled rare earth elements in their phone components and has programs to recover materials from old devices. They also stopped including charging bricks in boxes, which they claimed was environmental but probably saved them money too. Samsung committed to renewable energy in some regions but not others.
I created this embarrassingly detailed spreadsheet for evaluating electronics purchases now. My wife laughed at me when I brought it out while shopping for a new tablet for the kids, but it helps cut through the marketing claims. I look at repairability scores from iFixit, company transparency about labor conditions, use of recycled materials, and whether they make replacement parts available. It's probably overkill for most people, but it makes me feel better about the choices I'm making.
For those who don't want to research every component manufacturer, there are certification programs that do the work for you. TCO Certified evaluates everything from working conditions to environmental impact to how long products are designed to last. EPEAT rates electronics on various environmental criteria. These aren't perfect systems, but they're better than just trusting company marketing.
The used market is another option that's often overlooked. Refurbished devices have about 85% lower environmental impact than new ones while keeping working technology out of landfills. I bought my daughter a refurbished iPad for school that looks and works like new but cost half as much. Manufacturers often have certified refurbished programs, and there are specialized companies like Back Market that test and warranty used electronics.
Of course, individual purchasing decisions only go so far. Real change requires policy pressure. The EU passed regulations requiring companies to meet responsible sourcing standards for conflict minerals. They're also pushing right-to-repair laws that force manufacturers to make spare parts available and design products that can actually be fixed. The US has been slower on this stuff, but some states are introducing similar legislation.
What gives me hope is seeing consumer awareness drive actual change. Five years ago, almost nobody was asking questions about how their gadgets were made. Now companies are actually competing on repairability and ethical sourcing because customers care about it. When Apple brags about using recycled aluminum or Samsung promotes their device trade-in programs, that's responding to consumer demand that didn't exist a decade ago.
I went to this repair café event in Charlotte a few months ago – one of these community things where volunteers help people fix broken electronics for free. This older guy brought in a tablet with a cracked screen, figured it was trash. One of the volunteers not only fixed it but showed him how to do the repair himself next time. You could see how amazed he was that something he'd assumed was unfixable could actually be repaired pretty easily.
Small stuff like that gives me hope that we're moving in the right direction, even if it's slowly. Every device that gets repaired instead of replaced is a tiny victory against the throwaway culture that treats both natural resources and human labor as disposable.
I still have that phone that caused my public humiliation, by the way. It's in a drawer as a backup now, but I look at it sometimes as a reminder that no matter how much you think you know about sustainable living, there's always another blind spot to discover. The goal isn't to become some perfect ethical consumer – it's to keep asking uncomfortable questions and doing better when you know better.
My kids are getting old enough now to ask their own questions about where their stuff comes from. When my middle daughter wanted the latest iPhone because her friends had them, we talked about how long her current phone would likely last and what happens to old phones when people upgrade. She decided to keep hers for another year. Small victory, but I'll take it.
There's still so much I don't know about the supply chains behind our electronics. But I'm asking better questions now, and so are a lot of other people. That woman at the conference who called me out probably wouldn't be satisfied with how much I've learned since then – there's always more to do. But we're having conversations in my house now about repair versus replacement, about who makes our stuff and under what conditions, about whether we really need the latest and greatest or if what we have is good enough.
It's not perfect, but it's progress. And right now, progress feels like enough.
Louis writes from a busy home where eco-friendly means practical. Between school runs and mowing the lawn, he’s learning how to cut waste without cutting comfort. Expect family-tested tips, funny missteps, and small, meaningful changes that fit real suburban life.
