Silicon mountain: Our obsession with electronics is drowning the world in e-waste

Whether it's for work, school or keeping up with friends and family, we all rely on electronic devices for our daily lives. It's likely you are reading this article from a device that uses a battery or plug. Unfortunately, our phones and laptops contain some toxic elements and when they break or become obsolete, where they end up next can have big impacts on the environment.

This isn't a failure on the individual level so much as an overarching problem with our society's disposable culture. This trash differs from plastic and other types of pollution however because of the uniquely dangerous toxic metals and other materials, plus the fact that this category of electronic waste, or e-waste, is growing faster than any other.

According to a recent report by the United Nations (UN), humanity's e-waste production is a major environmental problem. Indeed, the UN's fourth Global E-waste Monitor (GEM) announced on Wednesday that human beings are creating five times more electronic waste than we are recycling. In 2022 alone, human beings created 137 billion pounds of e-waste and recycled less than a quarter of it. According to the report, this is enough e-waste that it equals the weight of 107,000 of the world's largest, heaviest 575 tonne passenger aircraft, enough to be connected head-to-tail from New York City to Athens, Greece. Even worse, the number is only increasing, with the 62 million tonnes produced in 2022 expected to rise by 32% to 82 million tonnes by 2030.

"E-waste presents very visible and obvious challenges to the environment and human health, while many of the solutions can be extremely effective but less visible," said report co-author Vanessa Gray, who heads the Environment and Emergency Telecommunication Division at the Telecommunication Development Bureau at the UN's International Telecommunication Union. "This includes the need for more and better e-waste regulation. Although this is an important first step to address the e-waste challenge, and helps drive recycling rates, most countries in the world do not yet have e-waste regulation in place."

Without proper regulations, people are likely to be exposed to the hazardous substances that allow our electronic inventions to work. Think of mercury, which can cause brain and nervous system damage and is present in some batteries. Lead poisoning is also common among those exposed to these materials, which can similarly cause brain and neurological damage. These devices may also contain dioxins that can harm a person's lungs, or cobalt that irritates the skin, eyes, nose and throat. E-waste also usually contains plastic, which never degrades and therefore creates pollution associated with myriad diseases that effectively remains in the environment indefinitely.

Research indicates that children and pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to the negative health effects of being exposed to these materials, especially in poorer regions of the world, where much of this trash is exported. Even though economically disadvantaged regions like Africa generate less e-waste, it can be lucrative scavenging electronic products for a living. But this is often done without proper personal or environmental protections. When this is combined with an inferior e-waste management infrastructure, one is left with a recipe for a widespread health crisis.

"African countries generate the lowest rates of e-waste but struggle to recycle it; their recycling rates are below 1 per cent," the authors of the report write. By partial contrast, Asia generates nearly half of the world's e-waste (at a staggering 30 billion kg) and yet has likewise made only "limited advances" in controlling its e-waste problem. In contrast, the report notes that in 2022, the regions that generated the highest amount of e-waste per capita were Europe, Oceania and the Americas.

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There are glimmers of hope in the report. For one thing, the researchers found that although only a small amount of e-waste is recycled, that was enough to spare the planet from being mined for 2 trillion pounds of ore for virgin metal. This is because recycling e-waste allows humanity to create new gadgets from old ones, an act which in turn lowers the high carbon footprint associated with mining and manufacturing.

Currently the Americas, for example, release 30.9 billion kg CO2 equivalents through their poor management of electronic products; Europe releases 16.6 billion kg of CO2 equivalents; Asia releases 82.4 billion kg of CO2 equivalents; and Africa releases 12.4 billion kg of CO2 equivalents. Safely repurposing electronic products automatically eliminates the greenhouse gas production associated with creating new devices. As the United Nations observed, people avoided emitting 93 million tonnes of CO2 emissions through their formal waste management efforts.

This means that the problem of e-waste pollution, though very serious, is not unsolvable. When people safely recycle their electronic products, it does indeed reduce the environmental harms from further exploitation and pollution.

Each individual can take important steps to solve the problem of e-waste pollution. To elaborate on this, Salon spoke by email with Kees Baldé, the report's lead author and a senior scientific specialist of Sustainable Cycles at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

"You have an old refrigerator and want to discard it," Baldé said, highlighting a common source of e-waste. "You decide to place it on the [curbside] for the municipality or a company to be collected." Usually someone will remove the copper compressor in the back to sell the valuable metal before the waste collector takes away the refrigerator. But if someone wants to reduce e-waste, this is not helpful.

"This compressor contains refrigerants and are immediately released," Baldé explained. "This may deplete ozone layer, if it’s an old fridge [but] newer refrigerants also contribute significantly to global warming. The emissions of gasses in one compressor equals one flight for one person of around 5,000 kilometers [3,106 miles]."

For other sources of e-waste, Baldé had a pointed observation for people who need to dispose of small devices that run on batteries. If "you throw it in the residual waste bin" instead of recycling it, the result is that "it will be incinerated or landfilled, instead of being recycled."

As for people who live in low and middle income countries, Baldé said that "waste pickers" who see e-waste "as a valuable resource and selectively scavenge and ‘recycle’ valuable components" need to be careful. Currently thousands of people do this "without the necessary protection and getting heavy metals [and] persistent chemicals in their bodies, and releasing toxic fumes and other emissions to the environment."

Baldé's advice is to "separate [your] e-waste, repair more and buy less electronics you don’t need."

Gray closed on a hopeful note, describing how we may be able to fix the problem. "Regulation can help ensure that producers and distributors of electrical and electronic equipment take on a responsibility for the products they put on the market. It can further help make it easier for products to be re-used, repaired, as well as recycled," Gray said.