A new UN report finds that humanity is generating 137 billion pounds of TVs, smartphones, and other e-waste a year—and recycling less than a quarter of it.
It’s an interesting topic for sure. And I’m not surprised that E-waste recycling is lagging. It’s easy to buy something, but there’s generally no equally easy way to turn things in as E-waste.
Let’s say I bought a new toaster from Amazon. What do I do with the old one? I can’t exchange it at the door, so I need to make an additional effort to bring it to a special E-waste recycling point. Which many don’t bother to do, as it’s easier to just chuck it in the regular waste bin. And if it’s small enough, we tend to chuck it in a drawer and forget about it. Who here doesn’t have a drawer with like three old phones in it?…
You can read the actual report here:
https://unitar.org/about/news-stories/press/global-e-waste-monitor-2024-electronic-waste-rising-five-times-faster-documented-e-waste-recycling
It’s an interesting topic for sure. And I’m not surprised that E-waste recycling is lagging. It’s easy to buy something, but there’s generally no equally easy way to turn things in as E-waste.
Let’s say I bought a new toaster from Amazon. What do I do with the old one? I can’t exchange it at the door, so I need to make an additional effort to bring it to a special E-waste recycling point. Which many don’t bother to do, as it’s easier to just chuck it in the regular waste bin. And if it’s small enough, we tend to chuck it in a drawer and forget about it. Who here doesn’t have a drawer with like three old phones in it?…