We’ve noted previously that smartphone sales are set to eclipse PC sales this year, and the entertainment appeal of apps like Angry Birds no doubt deserves a lot of credit for this meteoric rise.  In 2011, analysts expect consumers to buy about 380 million smartphones, and the latest reports that I could find place Angry Birds at around 50 million installs.

At EcoSquid, we do a lot of thinking about electronic waste, and the other day I started to wonder what the potential environmental impact of everyone playing Angry Birds could be.  What might the resource savings be if 50 million players knew to get rid of their phones responsibly when the time comes to upgrade to the newest Angry-Bird-playing-device? Read on if you’re ready to embrace the data behind this crazy thought experiment.

We’ve posted some numbers before on the resource offsets of recycling or reusing electronics for a small set of devices.  To strike a different perspective, the potential offsets for the total set of Angry Birds gamers would be enormous!  The CO2 emissions savings from recycling 50M Angry Bird devices would look like this:

101 million kg of CO2 is an awfully absurd number to grasp, so to give it some perspective, that would be equivalent to:

Emissions saved by recycling 50M Angry Bird gadgets is equal to:

Furthermore, if all of those Angry Bird devices were brought back to the market for people to reuse, the resource savings would be even greater. When people purchase phones secondhand, we can estimate the resources that would have been required to manufacture new devices for them instead. If we could assume 50m Angry Birds gadgets became available on the secondary market, our model estimates savings of 943,714,098 kg of CO2 emissions.

The typical upgrade cycle for cellphones has accelerated today to between 12 to 18 months, so we can expect a significant number of Angry Bird devices to go into retirement every day. (Let’s just use 18 months as our average time frame assuming that Angry Birds players are so attached to their top scores that they keep their current phones longer.) Spreading the adoption of Angry Birds evenly since its launch in December 2009, we can estimate that upwards of 90,000 devices with Angry Birds installed are now going into retirement daily. That’s over 13 tons of potential e-waste!

Obviously, Angry Birds is not a threat to the environment. The increasing number of electronics that become obsolete every day is, however, when people are not aware of how to responsibly resell or recycle their used electronics. What if everyone who understood the physics of slingshotting birds were also aware of the pollution caused by e-waste? It’s the awareness problem that we need to solve.

By looking at a recent list of 80 transactions that have been completed through our site, I was able to draw some very encouraging conclusions. When looking at the data, I was interested in a few things:

• How often do our buyers pay exactly what they quote
• How often do our buyers pay less than they quote
• How often do our buyers pay more than they quote
• What is the delta

EcoSquid is doing its best to make this process as seamless as possible.  Through the EcoSquid Wireless Store, we now offer some of the newest smartphones, like the Droid Charge by Samsung, the Samsung Epic 4g, the T-Mobile G2X with Google, the T-Mobile Sidekick 4g, and the Motorala Droid 2 Global.  All of these phones are listed at rock bottom prices.

However, we thought we would give an additional sweetener to our most environmentally responsible users.  For users with 500 or more EcoSquid points that buy new phones from us in May or June, we will also provide $25 cash back.  Keep in mind that many of the phones in our store are free, so our greenest users will actually be getting paid for their new phones, in addition to having earned cash for their old phones!

Check out a couple of the latest phones that have been added to our store:

Motorola Droid 2 FREE upgrade now »Reward: $25 Cash Back UNLOCK REBATE AT 500 PTS

	Samsung Epic 4G EcoSquid Price: Special Price upgrade now »Reward: $25 Cash Back
UNLOCK REBATE AT 500 PTS

You can see all of our latest phones at the EcoSquid rewards page.  If you don’t have 500 points yet, all you need to do is create a free account, select one offer, and refer one friend to our site.  It couldn’t be much easier than that!

The second piece of data, which is more relevant to us at EcoSquid, is that for the first time ever, smartphones account for more than half of all mobile phone sales in the US.  The top five best selling cell phones are smartphones: the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, Droid X, EVO 4G, and the Droid Incredible.

Not surprisingly, all of these phones can also fetch you a whole lot of cash on EcoSquid.  The following chart summarizes the resale values for each of these phones.  If you own one of these phones and want cash for it, you can search for these cash offers here:

In honor of Apple’s achievements, we thought we would take a look at Apple’s results to date on EcoSquid. The data shows that Apple’s performance on EcoSquid is just as dominant as its performance in the marketplace. Take a look at the following charts, which depict the brands of cell phones and tablets that have been sold for cash on EcoSquid.  All of this data and more can be found on our Leaderboard page:

Cell Phones:

Tablets:

You can take a look at the data yourself, but here is a quick summary:

• Users have sold twice as many iphones on EcoSquid than the next most sold brand (Blackberry)
• Apple iphones sell, on average, for $105, 20% more than the next most valuable cell phone brand (HTC)
• Users have sold 63 times more ipads on EcoSquid than any other tablet brand!
• Apple ipads sell, on average, for $250, 67% more than the next most valuable tablet brand (Viewsonic)

Most of us have heard about how important it is to recycle, but it is sometimes difficult to get motivated without understanding the tangible benefits of our actions.  This is why EcoSquid recently conducted a study on how our efforts to reuse and recycle electronic waste can positively affect our planet and the environment.  We tried to measure these effects in terms that we can all understand, like “gallons of gasoline saved” or “days worth of electricity saved for an average home.”  We think that the results will surprise you.

For the purposes of this article, let’s assume that you own one cell phone, one CRT monitor, one computer tower, one mp3 player, one laptop, a dvd player, and a cable box.  This is likely a very conservative estimate, as most of us have a drawer full of cell phones and a closet full of all of our other gadgets.  But for simplicity’s sake, let’s say that you just own these seven items.  If you were to resell these items rather than tossing them into a landfill, you would offset a total of 1,342 KG of CO2 and stop 25,416 mg of lead from being leached into our groundwater.

I know what you are thinking.  These numbers mean nothing to you, right?  Well, let’s start with the CO2 offsets.

Now let’s take a look at the potential impact of 25,416 MG of lead:

Putting things in these terms can help understand the severity involved with not reusing your old electronics. By reusing the seven gadgets listed above, you could achieve the emissions offset equivalent of taking your car off the road for almost 100 days, and you could potentially stop over 5000 liters of water from being contaminated.

Sometimes it takes knowledge to realize that we really  CAN have an impact.  In the case of electronic waste, a small amount of responsible action goes a long way!

Often, when I tell my friends about EcoSquid, I get a reaction like this: “Yea, I have an old iPhone but it’s got a cracked screen so you guys probably wouldn’t want it.”

FALSE!

On two counts.  First of all, EcoSquid is not the one that actually buys your old phone. We simply connect you with reputable refurbishing companies that do. These companies buy it, refurbish it, and sell it on the second hand market.

Secondly, the companies that we list on the site absolutely want your cracked iPhone.  If you don’t believe me, check out the prices that some of our partners are willing to pay for cracked and damaged smartphones.

iPhone 4 32 GB- $136

iPhone 4 16 GB- $116

iPhone 3GS 32 GB- $65

iPhone 3GS 16 GB- $63

Motorola Droid X- $51

Motorola Droid Original- $39

HTC Evo 4G- $59

I know what you are thinking…what’s the scam, right? There isn’t one. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense that they would be able to offer you such great payouts. The companies that EcoSquid lists specialize in refurbishing and reselling second hand electronics. So while it would be quite a pain for you or I to repair an old screen, for them it is just part of doing business.

So, if you have been hoarding away that innocent phone that was cracked during one of your drunken escapades, now is the time to dig it out and give it a second life. Hopefully its next owner will be more careful.

Search now on EcoSquid and find out how much you can still sell a cracked cell phone for.

Have a look at the following example to see exactly what this could mean to you:

Here is the deal. The retail price for a Blackberry Bold 9650 for Sprint is $549.99. With a 2 year plan and EcoSquid’s special pricing, you can get it for just $199.99. You can’t beat this price anywhere. Unless you have 500 points on EcoSquid.  If you do, you can get an additional $70 off!

Great! you might say. But how the heck do I get 500 points on EcoSquid?

You won’t believe how easy it is. All you have to do is create a free account (100 points), select one trade in or recycling offer (200 points) and refer one friend (200 points). That’s it!  And on top of that, you will probably earn more cash for your old cell phone in the process.

Not all of our rewards are as substantial as the one listed above, but one thing is certain: there is very little reason not to take advantage of them. Whether you are looking to buy a new Blakcberry Bold, Droid X, Droid Incredible, Samsung Fascinate, or Motorola CLIQ, chances are we have savings for you.

A number of our users have asked us if they can buy items on the site in addition to selling them. After months of work, we can finally say yes! Starting this week, EcoSquid users can sell their old cell phones for cash and use the proceeds to buy a new cell phone at a discount. But we didn’t stop here!  In addition to launching our EcoSquid Wireless Store, we have launched a points based rewards system so that our users can get even better deals when they resell or recycle their old electronics on the site.

We are happy to help users upgrade for cheap, but we really want them to give new life to their old gadgets first. To accomplish this, we are now awarding users points for selecting offers from buyers and recyclers on our site, for rating services, and for referring friends!

If you are interested in seeing what kinds of discounts you can get, check out our rewards page or browse the EcoSquid Wireless Store!  We will be adding our rewards catalogue in the upcoming weeks and months, so check back with us once in a while!