{"id":10144,"date":"2024-03-21T07:20:52","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T07:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=10144"},"modified":"2024-03-21T07:20:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T07:20:52","slug":"the-worlds-e-waste-has-reached-a-crisis-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=10144","title":{"rendered":"The World\u2019s E-Waste Has Reached a Crisis Point"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The phone or computer you\u2019re reading this on may not be long for this world. Maybe you\u2019ll drop it in water, or your dog will make a chew toy of it, or it\u2019ll reach obsolescence. If you can\u2019t repair it<\/a> and have to discard it, the device will become e-waste<\/a>, joining an alarmingly large mountain of defunct TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, cameras, routers, electric toothbrushes, headphones. This is \u201celectrical and electronic equipment,\u201d aka EEE\u2014anything with a plug or battery. It\u2019s increasingly out of control.<\/p>\n

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\u2014more than 17 pounds for every person on Earth\u2014and recycled less than a quarter of it.<\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

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