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Earth Technology

E-Waste Is Growing 5x Faster Than It Can Be Recycled, Says UN (theregister.com) 74

Posted by BeauHD from the WALL-E-had-it-right dept.
According to a United Nations report, humans are producing electronic waste almost five times faster than we're recycling it. "While e-waste recycling has benefits estimated to include $23 billion of monetized value from avoided greenhouse gas emissions and $28 billion of recovered materials like gold, copper, and iron, it also comes at a cost -- $10 billion associated with e-waste treatment and $78 billion of externalized costs to people and the environment," reports The Register. "Overall, this puts the net annual economic monetary cost of e-waste at $37 billion. And this is expected to reach $40 billion by 2030 if improvements in e-waste management and policies aren't made." From the report: The 2024 Global E-waste Monitor (GEM) [PDF] was prepared by the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). The report reveals that annual generation of e-waste -- discarded devices with a plug or battery -- is growing at a rate of 2.6 million metric tons per year (a metric ton is equivalent to roughly 2,204.62 pounds -- all units in this story are metric) and is expected to reach 82 million tons by 2030, from 62 million tons in 2022. Those 62 million tons, the report suggests, would fill 1.55 million 40-ton trucks, which would roughly encircle the equator -- if you parked them end-to-end and paved the relevant oceans. And that's to say nothing of the economic consequences of taking so many trucks out of service and disrupting global shipping routes with an equatorial parking structure, so let's not.

Of the 62 million tons of e-waste generated globally in 2022, an estimated 13.8 million tons was documented, collected, and properly recycled. Another 16 million tons is said to have been recycled through undocumented channels in high and middle-income countries with developed waste management infrastructure. A further 18 million tons, it is estimated, was processed in low and middle-low income countries without developed e-waste management systems -- through which toxic chemicals get released. And the final 14 million tons are said to have been thrown away to end up mainly in landfills -- also not ideal.

The rate of e-waste creation and recycling varies by region. In Europe, per capita e-waste generation is 17.6 kg and recycling is 7.5 kg. In Oceania, it's 16.1 kg and 6.7 kg respectively. In the Americas, it's 14.1 kg and 4.2 kg. The annual average formal collection and recycling rate in Europe is 42.8 percent, compared to 41.4 percent in Oceania, 30 percent in the Americas, 11.8 percent in Asia, and 0.7 percent in Africa. The report calls for stronger formal e-waste management and for policy makers to make sure that initiatives to promote renewable energy don't end up undermining environmental concerns. It notes, for example, that e-waste from photovoltaic panels -- to generate solar power -- is expected to quadruple from 0.6 million tons in 2022 to 2.4 million tons in 2030.
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E-Waste Is Growing 5x Faster Than It Can Be Recycled, Says UN More

E-Waste Is Growing 5x Faster Than It Can Be Recycled, Says UN

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  • Especially with 24h2 doing a "hard" block by requiring sse4.1 to even boot the kernel. Apple is bad too and millions of intel macs will meet their doom soon when Apple stops MacOS support for them. And despite having over 30 "years of the Linux desktop" it's still a meme. Steamdecks and Chromebooks get close, but the world relies on proprietary subscription software that also relies on "hardware subscriptions". Until someone commits to a computer platform that provides multiple decades of support e-waste wi
    • Yup, Windows PC's are 97% MORE then Apple products !!!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. This is a problem that is driven by greed and carelessness.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Targon ( 17348 )
      There are very few that MUST go to the new operating system the moment it comes out, and if you are doing that, then chances are, you will upgrade your computer every 5 years or less. Windows 11 runs on 2018 or newer generation computers, so that's not an issue at this point. If you can't go to the latest VERSION of Windows 11, that doesn't mean you just scrap the whole computer as well. There is always a question that people ask themselves, what does a new computer actually do better than the old one?

    • Re:Windows 11 is to blame (Score:5, Insightful)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Friday March 22, 2024 @08:06AM (#64335807)
      Dude its waaay beyond PC and Laptops. That stuff sticks around a lot longer than cheap consumer grade shit. Nobody repairs anything any more. You throw away what, one laptop, every 3 years? 5 years? When was the last time you repaired a set of ear buds? Or a digital thermometer? Or any other gadget that costs you less than $50. Fuck at one time people actually repaired their toasters. Air fryer go out on you? Time to just buy another. We live in a very consumerism dominated world and the entire economy depends on you throwing shit away because it costs more time and money to fix versus replace.

      • Re:Windows 11 is to blame (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Junta ( 36770 ) on Friday March 22, 2024 @08:30AM (#64335849)

        entire economy depends on you throwing shit away

        That makes it sound like it is deliberate instead of a side effect of making everything actually affordable. Adjusting for inflation, a decent TV was equivalent to $8,000, so it's definitely going to be considered for repair. Also, easier to repair because the process of making it cheap also made fewer circuit boards and more consolidated components into little parts.

        I remember when my family just couldn't have these things because they were impossibly out of reach.

        We certainly have a problem with ewaste, but pining for the days when only the rich had any access at all isn't exactly a great solution either.

        • But the rich were not the only one who had televisions, even color television that had big screens (for the time). No, it's that stealth inflation that the crap you buy now is as good as the stuff you used to be able to buy, is what is causing this. I have a kitchen range that is 75 years old and works better than any of the junk sold today - I know this as I've also had several modern ones. An old washing machine, too. I spent $800 on a mixer because I wanted one that was as good as the ones that used

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by HBI ( 10338492 )

            The $8k equivalent TV listed above used vacuum tubes. TVs have been more or less unrepairable since they stopped using tubes. No one is desoldering ICs to fix a problem. And that range...come on dude, I grew up in the appliance business, used to do service calls as a kid. Today's refrigerators are better, today's washing machines would be except for EPA-like crap like not letting the tubs fill, today's electric ranges have better elements, most of them have the glass top crap so they are easier to clean

          • I wasn't exaggerating when I said growing up we couldn't afford this stuff. I corrected for inflation, appliances and electronic everything are relatively dirt cheap now. Stagnate wages with inflation for food and housing has been a struggle, but access to cheap technology is more available than it ever has been.

            As to your example, it is true that every 75 year old appliance that still works has outlasted every new appliance that has failed. It's called survivorship bias. For so long as I can recall peop

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 )
          in a way it is deliberate. Economies depend on consumerism. What causes more purchases? 1 time expenses or consumables? This is why the subscription model of software has become a constant. Rarely does a business buy a copy of MS Office anymore. Instead you sign up on a monthly per-seat pricing for Office365. And they are not the only ones doing that by far and away. If you are in the business of selling toilet paper you always have a market of repeat customers. Selling treadmills is a lot less of a recurri

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by RobinH ( 124750 )
        Minor quibble... the economy doesn't depend on you throwing stuff away, but given the very low cost of mass manufacture, coupled with how quickly we're still coming up with new and better designs, and relatively poor quality for most electronic gadgets, the whole system does depend on the ability of consumers to get rid of e-waste cheaply and easily.

    • Total e-waste: 62 million tonnes
      Small IT and telecommunication equipment category (e.g. laptops, mobile phones, GPS devices, routers): 4.6 million tonnes
      So laptops are less than 7.4% of all e-waste. And most people who do have a computer have a laptop instead of a desktop.
      https://www.unitar.org/about/n... [unitar.org]

      But yes, switching to Linux instead of buying a new computer is the way to go. Though most people can't install an OS, so the year of the Linux desktop is waiting for a major company to ship computers with

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 )

      actually, people being too lazy to take an hour out of their day to recycle their waste is about the same as people being too lazy to take 10 minutes to look into the most basic facts of an issue before they voice an opinion is to blame

      people are lazy and problems shared among all people means nobody or anything specific is "at fault"

  • Mandatory... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Friday March 22, 2024 @06:54AM (#64335689)
    ...deposit schemes (i.e. bring your defective/broken items back to any electronics retailer for return on the deposit you paid when you bought it), & lifetime support guarantees for all electronic items (i.e. software support & parts for a minimum number of years, e.g. 20 years for a PC) would be a start. Stop treating electronics as if they were disposable. They're not. The same can be applied to other areas of waste, e.g. vehicles & household electrical items like fridges & washing machines.

    How about we require manufacturers to make everything more durable & repairable. Require parts designs to be openly available to open up competition from 3rd party manufacturers & repairers. Create new jobs in support, servicing, & repair. Those are the kinds of jobs that are skilled & difficult to offshore. This should make local economies stronger.

    Also ban most single use items such as fast food packaging, plastic bags, fresh produce packaging, etc.. These create mountains of waste that's unnecessary & close to impossible to dispose of sustainably & as a result pollute our water, air, & food. I you want to eat out, go to a restaurant or café where they use plates, glasses, & cutlery that they re-use. When there's enough routine demand, eating out becomes much more affordable. It can also be a lot healthier rather than making ourselves sick on ultra-processed fast foods from places like McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, etc..

    We've tried "leaving it to the markets" & deregulation & offshoring & look where it's taken us. Obviously, corporations aren't going to look out for our interests until we require them to. It no even that radical an idea; it's only extending existing laws & regulatory frameworks already in place & manufacturers will have to adjust their practices accordingly. It's that simple.

    You know, when our civilisations are facing existential threats.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Sure, this would be fixable. But the will to do so is not there. Just look, for example, at the minimal outrage so far at Win11 making a massive amount of perfectly good PCs obsolete.

      • The only way to really make it work is to require it, i.e. pass & enforce the appropriate laws.
      • The outrage is minimal because only a very small amount of users are planing to upgrade to Win11. As with every other Windows version since XP, people will try and hold on to Win10 until they are left with no choice. By that time, the hardware will be up to spec.

    • ...deposit schemes (i.e. bring your defective/broken items back to any electronics retailer for return on the deposit you paid when you bought it), & lifetime support guarantees for all electronic items (i.e. software support & parts for a minimum number of years, e.g. 20 years for a PC) would be a start. Stop treating electronics as if they were disposable. They're not.

      Given the discounts we often see pushed from greedy smartphone vendors playing the narcissistic game of perpetually pressuring consumers into the latest and greatest every year, I’d say a society full of narcissists that responds well to that is pretty well-versed on the fact that their $1000 smartphone is still worth hundreds when the trade-in offer comes 12 months deep into a 36-month contract.

      I agree there should be costs to bear, but perhaps not on the part of the consumer. Tax and fine the livi

      • Those contracts have already been banned in several countries for the many problems they create for everyone. Here' you can cancel a contract within a month, no penalties. Vendors have adjusted their T&Cs accordingly.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      The problem is I could either spend $100 repairing a battery power bank, or spend $23 on amazon for two more just like it. As long as a total replacement is more convenient and costs less than labor costs of repair, people wont do it. That leaves geeks like me fixing shit because broken stuff bugs me. Even of I buy a replacement; I am compelled to try and fix something before tossing it in the trash.
      • Of course, you're describing how things are now, which is the problem. When manufacturers have the responsibility to make stuff work & be repairable, that'll change.

    • How about we require manufacturers to make everything more durable & repairable.

      We need to first require consumers to give a shit. I just spent an hour on the weekend talking someone out of upgrading a perfectly fine and performant computer simply because the person said "it's 4 years old now!" and assumed that meant it was time to throw it out.

      Repairability is not relevant if consumers don't fix things. You can see this most prominent in the mobile phone battery debates. There is not a phone on the market which doesn't have a replaceable battery. Not a single one. You personally may n

      • Re: "We need to first require consumers to give a shit." - Say who? If we rely on consumerism, yes, we're all doomed. How about we try something different? How about we actually do something effective, like we do with health & safety regulation?
  • I guess the biggest issue with recycling is how expensive it is due to both product design and manufacturing not taking future recycling into consideration. And TBO I don't know how and if it than can be solved.

  • Right to repair (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TractorBarry ( 788340 ) on Friday March 22, 2024 @07:08AM (#64335715) Homepage

    This is why things like right to repair laws are required. It should be entirely up to end users when they want to stop using the devices they'd paid for. I had to take some rubble to the local tip recently and was dismayed to see the amount of computer towers in the recycling skips. Some of which looked relatively new ! My local tip is really good at recycling computer hardware but still...

    It's also why, when a manufacturer stops supporting a particular version of software, they should be legally obliged to open source the code and file formats. That way people who are using the software can decide whether to keep it running on the hardware they already have. Either by themselves or by paying a third party. It would also stop vendor lock in via the use of deliberately obscure binary file formats.

    The entire IT industry needs a good hard slap round the head with regard to their "forced obsolescence, buy more shit" business model - especially when this is done via completely arbitrary O/S version requirements.. Totally environmentally irresponsible.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      The largest issue that right-to-repair wont solve is the items in that $10 - $100 range. When the labor and parts of a handyman exceeds the cost to buy a replacement. In the 70s TV repair and repairing toasters was a Big business. Who fixes a $30 toaster? Or a $150 flat screen 32in TV? TV repair shops at the time fixed everything from 12in TV to the large 27in models.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        You can see it in the materials choices and deployment and assembly strategy everywhere. A simple example everyone can see is home construction. I had a house built in the 50s. Its evidence materials were the cost driver. All the doors are framed by hand, out of pine, the jointing was done on individuals boards and than they got paint.

        Now days the entire door would be delivered pre-hung. The quality of the materials that end up in the building it terms of mill-work might be about the same, but there is

      • > When the labor and parts of a handyman exceeds the cost to buy a replacement

        That's because neither the consumer, nor the manufacturer pays the cost true cost of waste handling/recycling. If you had to pay for the recycling, you might reconsider your choices. Our whole society is built on the fact that you can just bury our trash for future generations at little-to-no cost (notable exception to Japan).

    • Just wait until Microsoft drops windows 10 support.

    • This is why things like right to repair laws are required. It should be entirely up to end users when they want to stop using the devices they'd paid for.

      That's not the answer. You pointed that out in the following sentence when you saw perfectly fine looking computer towers in the tip. The reality is most consumers don't care. They update computers because it's trendy and throw the old ones out. They upgrade their phones because they want a new one, not because their flat battery can't be pulled out (it can, every shopping centre has a small electronics repair shop which will do that for you).

      Rampant consumerism is a far larger problem than a right to repai

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Misagon ( 1135 )

      It's also why, when a manufacturer stops supporting a particular version of software, they should be legally obliged to open source the code and file formats.

      I am not sure I agree about going as far as requiring all abandonware to become open source. In many cases, there are complex licensing issues with components, especially with video games.

      I think that publishers of commercial software should be required to have any DRM keys to into escrow ahead of publication.. When the software becomes abandonware (f

  • But I need five camera lenses! Four can't see all the dimensions!

  • Sounds like we have reached a sigularity (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday March 22, 2024 @07:18AM (#64335737)

    WALL-E will have to mostly shovel e-waste, it seems.

    • The robots will build themselves from our trash.

      • Wall-e literally repaired himself from other dead wall-es

        • Yeah, but the robots will go all Inspector Gadget by themselves, beyond repair and into augmentation. We are leaving them endless options.

    • The funny (sad?) part about this comment is the reason Wall-E survived for so long is that he pillaged parts from all the other dead Wall-Es laying around in the tip. Remember kids, in the wasteland cannibalism is okay.

  • Right to repair (Score:3)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday March 22, 2024 @07:19AM (#64335741)
    I don't understand why "green" people are not embracing right to repair. Right to repair increases useful life (because people fix instead of replacing!) of electronics and reduce waste.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Maybe because "green" is a giant fraud, which has nothing to do with saving the environment? If they actually cared, they'd try to roll back their contributions to making nuclear outrageously expensive; it was 3 cents/kWh at one time, and well on its way to replacing coal. If we had pursued a more sensible technology path with MSRs, electricity would likely be a fraction of a cent/kWh today. Instead, their preferred "renewable" technologies have rapacious mining requirements, obscenely short lifetimes, and

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dskoll ( 99328 )

      They are. Environmental concerns are one of the reasons people push for the right to repair.

  • Sounds Like A Job For The Prison System (Score:3)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Friday March 22, 2024 @08:08AM (#64335811)

    Or maybe the unemployed. Too bad our publicly elected official system sucks balls. You expect the general population which requires tens of thousands of laws to govern can make a wise choice as to who will govern them?

  • No - right to return not right to repair (Score:3)

    by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Friday March 22, 2024 @08:10AM (#64335821)

    There needs to be a duty on retailers or manufacturers to accept back ancient electronic stuff. This is to impose the cost where it should be - the firms creating the pollution by selling stuff that will end up dumped. Right to repair doesn't target the polluters so effectively. Yes, of course this will add to the cost of our toys, but we need to accept that we are the polluters to some extent.

  • I suspect mobile devices are a big part of the problem. IMO, it should be illegal to sell any device that has a non-user-replaceable battery, since dead batteries are a leading reason for tossing a phone. Obviously there could be some exceptions such as medical devices that are implanted in your body, etc. but for run-of-the-mill consumer devices, non-user-replaceable batteries are just evil.

    Yes, yes, phones will get thicker and it'll be harder to make them waterproof. Tough luck! That's the price of do

  • "But that's not cheap!" (Score:3)

    by kackle ( 910159 ) on Friday March 22, 2024 @09:26AM (#64335979)
    Yes we suck at recycling [cbsnews.com] (jump to 2:00 for a taste).

    I agree with another poster, find a way to put an at-time-of-purchase deposit on most everything. That worked well to keep glass soda bottles from being littered everywhere prior to the 1980s (when they switched to the 2-liter plastic bottle). In fact, I pondered the "return" value being even slightly higher than the deposit (bank interest?)--that would get the plebes even excited to participate.

    It's another reason I'm not a fan of all the tech in cars today; no one pays attention to the unintended consequences. My 1960s car is almost completely biodegradable. (I've often wondered what is worse, tailpipe emissions or the e-waste.)
  • Being the family techno-geek, I would save old broken electronics gathered here, there, and everywhere, and occasionally take it all down to the county landfill where they had a recycling center for electronics. After doing this for many years, I found out all they do is remove the batteries and cold-cathode tubes (with mercury) and everything else- all the plastic, metal, glass- would go into the landfill.
    So with many many phone calls I found a private recycler in our area. They had some excuse or anoth

  • If I'm reading the summary correctly, spending $10 billion would recover $28 billion in metals.

    I'm skeptical of both numbers. We have 8 billion humans. Surely some greedy industrial tycoon would be interested in doubling his or her money. It's almost as if the people who's money would be on the line have looked at it and decided it's just not that easy.

    There have been a flurry of articles recently, some shared here on /., revealing that plastics recycling is not nearly as easy and effective as we were led t

  • Verizon (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Friday March 22, 2024 @11:02AM (#64336285) Homepage Journal

    Locked bootloaders == ewaste.

  • Stop appointing people to the job in the US calling them "A good girl" when they read the script. Appoint someone qualified so we can actually improve the situation.

  • The actual volume of scrap is physically modest and of course microscopic compared to space available. Crudely sort where useful then leave it in heaps to process later.

    The point of recycling is resource recovery which need not be immediate. As recycling and automation improve it will become cheaper and easier to recycle electronics. Meantime the items can wait and they waste no energy sitting.

    Scrapping operations have stored resources for many years in the metals industry, for example auto scrap and salvag

    • The actual volume of scrap is physically modest and of course microscopic compared to space available.

      Yes. The fine summary had scare quotes about dump trucks circling the globe with no context to how this compares to say, waste from building construction or demolition. In the 80s we were concerned we'd run out of landfills but that problem also turned out to be wildly overstated. If we're going to discuss a problem, let's make sure we all use the same facts and understand the context.

      Crudely sort where useful then leave it in heaps to process later.

      That's a pretty good suggestion. I often wonder about this. It seems digging up an old landfill ought to be a richer source

      • Old landfills have a massive amount of toxic waste.

        • Old landfills have a massive amount of toxic waste.

          Interesting point. In the vein of my previous comment, define "massive". Is it more or less massive than the toxic waste encountered when mining metals from ore.

          I don't know much about iron mining but in that case. From what I understand, you just heat the iron ore in a furnace and out comes pig iron so probably not a lot of toxins (in relative terms). Gold mining, on the other hand, creates pools of toxic waste in its wake.

          And for completeness, I'd be interested in knowing how much toxic waste is created w

  • Its going to get exponentially worse when Windows 10 goes EOL in October 2025. Thanks to Microsoft's ridiculous TPM and Secure Boot requirements for Windows 11. Basically any computer made before 2017 is going to be useless for anything other thank Linux. And most of the planet doesn't know how to use Linux. So that's about a billion computers going to landfills soon.

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