Greenpeace disrupted Samsung's MWC event to question Note 7 phone disposal

Samsung can’t seem to get away from the disaster of the Galaxy Note 7 launch. Today, its press event at the 2017 Mobile World Congress trade show was briefly disrupted by protesters from the Greenpeace environmental group who wanted to find how the company is handling the disposal of the millions of recalled Note 7 smartphones.

Early into the Samsung media event, a protester got on the steps of the stage and showed a banner to the audience, with the recycle symbol and the words “Rethink, Reuse, Recycle” surrounding the Samsung logo and a #GalaxyNote7 hashtag. The Verge reported that Samsung Electronics Europe Chief Marketing Officer David Lowes addressed the protester, saying simply, “You’ve made your point.” A similar banner was put in place by other Greenpeace members outside the event venue in Barcelona, Spain.

In a post on its official blog, the Spanish division of Greenpeace stated it has been asking Samsung since November how it planned to handle the disposal of what it claims are the 4.3 million units of the Note 7 that the company recalled in the fall of 2016. Greenpeace feels that the rise of smartphones in general is having a negative impact on the environment, and wants Samsung to “lead the industry and evolve into a system that allows phones to be easily repaired, reused and recycled.”

Recent unconfirmed reports claimed that Samsung was going to put refurbished Galaxy Note 7 handsets on sale again, but with new batteries, in markets like India and Vietnam later this year. However, a spokesperson for the company in India stated those reports were incorrect.