That’s an imperative for many industries. On the one hand, there’s the need to reduce the carbon footprint. These devices don’t just use electricity when they are in the hands of the consumer their manufacture and distribution also generate considerable emissions.
Last year, there were 14.91 billion phones operating globally this year that number is expected to be around a billion more. For a measure of how that translates into tech proliferation, consider mobile phones. The UN forecasts that this year, the world’s population will hit eight billion people 20 years prior, it had just passed six billion. This is not only a public health concern, because e-waste contains harmful substances, but it’s a stark environmental issue – and that’s before you even consider the lifetime energy use of all those devices. More troubling still, the UN forecast that on current trends, annual e-waste generation will grow to 74.7 million metric tonnes by 2030. Comprising everything from video cameras and televisions to vacuum cleaners and dishwashers, this contained $57 billion of raw materials, more than the GDP of many countries – of which only 17.4 percent was recycled. The world was producing a record 53.6 million metric tonnes of e-waste per year, the equivalent of over a million Boeing 737s. In 2020, the United Nations published a report on electronic waste – and the findings were bracing.
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