Just when you thought you’d heard the last of the Note 7 saga, Samsung reveals it’s been looking at ways to dispose of the discontinued handsets without damaging the planet.
As the company told Reuters, it is “reviewing” ways of limiting the environmental impact of the global Note 7 recall, which has seen the firm take back more than 3 million handsets.
In a statement, the company said: “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.”
Related: Is the Mate 9 the perfect Note 7 replacement?
It follows a statement from environmental group Greenpeace earlier this week, which called on the company to ensure the rare materials used in the Note 7, such as cobalt, gold, palladium, and tungsten are preserved.
Just what Samsung plans to do with the recalled devices remains unclear, and the company did not refer directly to the Greenpeace statement in its own.
Samsung took a giant financial hit from the Note 7 debacle, which is estimated to have cost the firm $19 billion, so it would make sense for it to recycle materials.
However, there’s still been no official word on what it was that caused Note 7 handsets to overheat, and in some cases explode, so Samsung will likely want to establish that before it goes packing components from the Note into its other handsets.
After initially blaming the overheating issues on its sister company Samsung SDI and the batteries it produced, the company was forced to admit it wasn’t certain of what the problem was after handsets with replacement batteries started exploding.
WATCH: Note 7 review
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
