Nice try! O2 creates Twickers inspired phone

Telecoms giant O2 recently unveiled a fully-functioning smart phone made out of grass cut from Twickenham Stadium - the home of the England Rugby team - and parts of recycled phones.

Commissioned for its ‘Recycle for Rugby’ initiative - which supports the RFU’s new social responsibility programme Try for Change, which promotes rugby as a powerful tool for social good - the phone was created using a combination of recycled mobile phone parts and real grass. O2 Recycle collaborated with designer, Sean Miles, on the project.

O2 says that the piece showcases how old tech has the exciting potential to be upcycled into something new, original and unique, and to inspire more people to recycle their old devices.

The device is fully functional and took over 240 hours to build, with designers using tens of thousands of grass blades for the casing and locally-sourced wood for the buttons. The grass was freeze-dried within two hours of being cut from Twickenham Stadium before going through a pulping process and being molded into a template. Once in the casing, the pulped grass was then covered in an eco-friendly resin – made from waste materials – hardening and bonding the grass together to protect the inner workings of the phone.

Electronics are the fastest growing waste stream in the world as devices are often discarded before they are unrepairable or technically outdated. O2 Recycle, which has to date received 1.4m devices since its launch in 2009, repurposes nine out of 10 gadgets.

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