According to EcoWatch http://ecowatch.com/2013/12/23/worldwid … lion-tons/ approximately 50 million tons of electronics were thrown out I 2012 and 65 million ton is expected to be thrown out in 2015. This is 33% of where our waste comes from. Are phones and computers and television sets really worth harming our environment? Getting an electronic here and there is fine, but to the extent of having 50 million tons of it in our landfills is extreme. In my opinion televisions are useless, all you do is watch shows which you can do on a computer or a phone. I have not watched TV in four years. My family has three television sets, one we don’t use unless guests are over, one for the game room, and one for my parents. Although I believe we don’t need any of them, we decided to get some so that if guests came over it would leave them to entertain themselves. Also, households should have one desktop computer that everyone uses and one laptop. Maybe not even a desktop computer, laptops are more for convenience purposes. Phones are also a big issue no w. You cannot find anyone nowadays without some sort of phone. I’ve seen 7-year-olds with their own iPhones. Are phones really a need? I get that we need them for emergencies sometimes, but with all these smartphones with games and different apps it is causing the younger generation to want a phone when they do not need one. Phones should be used for emergency purposes, but even then I believe that students should not have phones. If a student is in school, the parent could always contact the student in a dire situation. According to http://database.cmch.tv/mentors/hotTopic.asp?id=70 22% of young children between the ages of six and nine have a phone, 60% of tweens between the ages of 10 and 14 have their own phones, and 80% of teenagers between the ages of 15 and 18 have their own phones. If students stopped getting phones, the amount of electronic waste we have would drop immensely.

You bring up very excellent points and interesting facts that I didn't know before. I didn't realize so much waste was produced by electronics. I agree with you that getting a television is not worthwhile. Many of the same programs we find on television can easily be found on the computer, just as you mentioned. You also bring up a very good point about laptops. Laptops are much more energy efficient than desktop computers. I used to have two desktop computers in my house, but now I have none. My parents wanting to be eco-friendly, decided to donate the parts and now the entire family uses only laptops. My parents also have the same ideas as yours, especially when it comes to phones. I only received my first phone this year, and it is a flip phone. By having a flip phone and not a smart phone, my battery doesn't get depleted quickly, and I can go two to three days without charging it. This way I can be more eco-friendly.

I think that both of you established great point of views. Unfortunately that's the truth we're facing now' a days. People don't care a lot if they have the latest thing on technology or if they have the old one. They just want everything new, they consume and consume more and more, but they're not realizing that what they're doing is causing really bad damages in all around the world, like you guys said in the end in ends up being in the trash so I think that we need to change that once and for all,  because if we don't then people will continue on being consumers and consumers, so we need to think and be like responsible consumers.