As it stands, our addiction to smartphones is damaging to the environment.

But Chile has a plan to make our mobile devices much greener. There's one problem, however: they'll have to pay a premium to develop technology that's more environmentally friendly, Popular Science notes.

Smartphones, tablets and even green technology are produced using rare earth minerals.Currently, the cheap way to mine these minerals involves extracting the cerium from the subsurface,. Once the minerals are mined from the nasty cocktail, a toxic sludge is left behind and dumped into a dammed waterway.

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Chilean junior miner Mineria Activa has found rare earth minerals in the clay , Bloomberg reported. The clays that contain the minerals are similar to what's found in China, where most of the world's rare earth minerals are mined, but the proposed Biolantanidos project will acquire the goods from a very different method.

"While operations in China typically pump ammonium sulfate into the ground and wait for the chemical to seep out with the minerals, at Biolantanidos, the plan is to dig out the clay, put it through a tank-leaching process with biodegradable chemicals and return it cleaned to the ground, replanting pine and eucalyptus trees," the report said.

Activa plans to charge companies more than they currently pay for the minerals because it will cost more to mine them in a way that's friendly to the environment, but experts question whether the big companies like Apple will actually pay a premium for greener mining processes, research firm Stormcrow Capital Ltd. President Jim Hykawy told Bloomberg.

Already, Activa and its financial partners have pledged $20 million to getting Biolantanidos underway, and the company plans to begin production by the end of next year, Bloomberg added. Now, it's up to them to convince smartphone companies that the extra price is a worthwhile tradeoff for a cleaner planet.

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