The World's Electronic Waste This Year Will Weigh More Than the Great Wall of China

[Judi Lynn]

By Vanessa Bates Ramirez -Oct 15, 2021

It’s widely known that the world has a plastics problem. From landfills to the ocean, the stuff is everywhere, and our conscientious efforts to recycle don’t do nearly as much good as we think.

What’s less widely known is that we have a similar problem with another kind of waste: electronics. A report published this week on WEEE Forum revealed that the total waste electronic and electrical equipment from 2021 will weigh an estimated 57.4 million tons. That’s heavier than China’s Great Wall, which is the heaviest man-made object on Earth.

Not surprisingly, the amount of e-waste generated each year is steadily increasing. For one, as the global middle class grows, more people can afford to buy electronics (and to buy new ones when their old ones break, rather than getting the old ones repaired). Also, the prices of many electronic items tend to trend downwards as their manufacture is scaled up, their technology improves, supply chains are streamlined, etc. (given the global chip shortage, the next couple years may be an exception to this trend).

E-waste appears to be growing by three to four percent per year. In 2019 the total reached 53.6 million tons; that was 21 percent higher than 2014’s total. If we stay on this trajectory, annual global e-waste will reach 74 tons by 2030.

Product manufacturers aren’t helping the situation; building products with shorter life cycles, making repairs too expensive or difficult to undertake, and continually releasing new iterations means people are likely to either cast aside their perfectly-good iPhones/tablets/laptops for newer models, or decide that repairing a non-working device isn’t worth the trouble and opt for buying a brand-new one. Do you have at least one working (or partially-working) cell phone or laptop sitting in a drawer somewhere, untouched for months or years? Yeah, me too.

More:
https://singularityhub.com/2021/10/15/the-worlds-electronic-waste-this-year-will-weigh-more-than-the-great-wall-of-china/

[cilla4progress]

1. This.

We've shat in our home.

You know what comes next.

[OAITW r.2.0]

2. Lot of metals can recovered. Copper. Silver. Gold and other precious metals can be extracted.

[marble falls]

4. Yep, but it has to done correctly.

[NickB79]

5. It does get recovered. But in the worst way possible

Burned in open fires by poor families, exposing them to lethal chemicals.

https://theconversation.com/electronic-waste-is-recycled-in-appalling-conditions-in-india-110363

[OAITW r.2.0]

6. Lead connections....all in on the 60/70 electronic connections.

[marble falls]

3. Dismal, dismal, dismal.