Close Menu
Technology Mag

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    What's Hot

    The Supreme Court is Google’s last hope to avoid an Epic reckoning in October

    September 15, 2025

    Meta leaks its new smart glasses with a display

    September 15, 2025

    ‘Hades II’ Is Coming to Nintendo Switch This Month

    September 15, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Subscribe
    Technology Mag
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    • Home
    • News
    • Business
    • Games
    • Gear
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Security
    • Trending
    • Press Release
    Technology Mag
    Home » The World’s E-Waste Has Reached a Crisis Point
    Science

    The World’s E-Waste Has Reached a Crisis Point

    News RoomBy News RoomMarch 24, 20242 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp Email

    The phone or computer you’re reading this on may not be long for this world. Maybe you’ll drop it in water, or your dog will make a chew toy of it, or it’ll reach obsolescence. If you can’t repair it and have to discard it, the device will become e-waste, joining an alarmingly large mountain of defunct TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, cameras, routers, electric toothbrushes, headphones. This is “electrical and electronic equipment,” aka EEE—anything with a plug or battery. It’s increasingly out of control.

    As economies develop and the consumerist lifestyle spreads around the world, e-waste has turned into a full-blown environmental crisis. People living in high-income countries own, on average, 109 EEE devices per capita, while those in low-income nations have just four. A new UN report finds that in 2022, humanity churned out 137 billion pounds of e-waste—more than 17 pounds for every person on Earth—and recycled less than a quarter of it.

    That also represents about $62 billion worth of recoverable materials, like iron, copper, and gold, hitting e-waste landfills each year. At this pace, e-waste will grow by 33 percent by 2030, while the recycling rate could decline to 20 percent. (You can see this growth in the graph below: purple is EEE on the market, black is e-waste, and green is what gets recycled.)

    Courtesy of UN Global E-waste Statistics Partnership

    “What was really alarming to me is that the speed at which this is growing is much quicker than the speed that e-waste is properly collected and recycled,” says Kees Baldé, a senior scientific specialist at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and lead author of the report. “We just consume way too much, and we dispose of things way too quickly. We buy things we may not even need, because it’s just very cheap. And also these products are not designed to be repaired.”

    Humanity has to quickly bump up those recycling rates, the report stresses. In the first pie chart below, you can see the significant amount of metals we could be saving, mostly iron (chemical symbol Fe, in light gray), along with aluminum (Al, in dark gray), copper (Cu), and nickel (Ni). Other EEE metals include zinc, tin, and antimony. Overall, the report found that in 2022, generated e-waste contained 68 billion pounds of metal.

    Graphs displaying recoverable and nonrecoverable metals in ewaste

    Courtesy of UN Global E-waste Statistics Partnership

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleWhich Breast Pump Is Right for You?
    Next Article Mobile Gaming is Having a Moment—and Backbone Wants to Unite It

    Related Posts

    US Taxpayers Will Pay Billions in New Fossil Fuel Subsidies Thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill

    September 15, 2025

    The New Math of Quantum Cryptography

    September 15, 2025

    ‘People Are So Proud of This’: How River and Lake Water Is Cooling Buildings

    September 15, 2025

    Researchers Create 3D-Printed Artificial Skin That Allows Blood Circulation

    September 15, 2025

    Falcon 9 Milestones Vindicate SpaceX’s ‘Dumb’ Approach to Reuse

    September 14, 2025

    Why Former NFL All-Pros Are Turning to Psychedelics

    September 13, 2025
    Our Picks

    Meta leaks its new smart glasses with a display

    September 15, 2025

    ‘Hades II’ Is Coming to Nintendo Switch This Month

    September 15, 2025

    Google thinks it can have AI summaries and a healthy web, too

    September 15, 2025

    A New Platform Offers Privacy Tools to Millions of Public Servants

    September 15, 2025
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Vimeo
    Don't Miss
    Business

    How China’s Propaganda and Surveillance Systems Really Operate

    By News RoomSeptember 15, 2025

    A trove of internal documents leaked from a little-known Chinese company has pulled back the…

    I’ve been using macOS Tahoe 26 since June and here are the eight best things about it

    September 15, 2025

    Microsoft’s Office apps now have free Copilot Chat features

    September 15, 2025

    I Wasn’t Sure I Wanted Anthropic to Pay Me for My Books—I Do Now

    September 15, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of use
    • Advertise
    • Contact
    © 2025 Technology Mag. All Rights Reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.