Why has Rhombus Tech been created?

Like the people who supported Phonebloks we are deeply concerned about the environmental impact of the throw-away culture in electronics.

The situation is such that perfectly good devices with no major faults, which just happen to have a 6-month-old processor that is no longer the "fastest in the world", or that has a minor cosmetic fault in its hermetically-sealed casing, are thrown out with complete disregard for the consequences. The cumulative consequences of each of us making our own isolated decisions to throw out perfectly functional electronics is that all those products (hundreds of millions of them) in landfill has resulted in a higher concentration of rare earth metals and heavy metals in our landfill sites than there is in the original mines they were extracted from.

Old discarded mobile phones, image by Chris Jordan.

The processor not being fast enough compared to the latest model is just one of the many reasons for discarding electronics, yet the processor's actual cost in these devices is now well below 10% of the cost of the entire unit.

What Phonebloks is doing for mobile phones (encouraging the development and production of products that produce less e-waste, starting with your phone), Rhombus Tech is tackling everything else: Laptops, Desktop PCs, Tablets, MIDs, Media Centres, Video Players, Hand-held Games Consoles - everything.

Somebody has to.

To continue with the current direction of buying throw-away products - with such high concentrations of toxic materials in them - just because the companies that made them are focussed on profits - is unconscionable. So somebody has to show them that there is a better way, one which is more environmentally conscious but at the same time is profitable.