Discarded wire speakers will circle the moon three times
The 50,000-kilometre cellphone tower that will be disposed of this year will reach one-eighth the distance of the Earth and the Moon, 120 times farther than the International Space Station, and the wire earphones that we will throw away by 2026 will circle the moon three times.
Despite the obvious value of many of the raw materials hidden in discarded electronics—gold, copper, silver, palladium, and many other recyclable items—experts are almost certain that most of them end up deep in drawers, closets, garages, or even worse, in Collective waste, where the only road leads to landfills and incinerators.
The survey launched by the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum sought to find out
I wonder why most homes and businesses don’t direct their used electronics toward repair or recycling.
The surveys were conducted between June and September this year by members of the WEEE Forum, and the results were summarized in the Sustainable Courses Program of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
On average, there are seventy-four electrical appliances in a European home
The research, which covers 8,775 households in six European countries – Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Slovenia and the United Kingdom – well represents the diversity of the continent, including the European Union. In the average households of the countries included in the study, excluding lighting fixtures, there are 74 electrical and electronic appliances, including phones, tablets, laptops, power tools, hair dryers, toasters, and all kinds of other household electronic and entertainment devices.
Of those 74, an average of 13 fall out of use each year – 4 because they break down, the remaining 9 are not used anymore.
In Europe, the five types of EEE that are often set aside but not disposed of are:
1) small entertainment electronic devices and accessories (such as headphones, remote control); 2) small household electronic devices (such as wall clocks, irons); 3) small computing devices (such as an external hard drive, router, keyboard, mouse); 4) mobile phones and smartphones; 5) Small kitchen electronics (eg toaster, grinder, grill).
This statistic refers to the number of pieces; Considered by weight, washing machines and other large household appliances will lead the field of e-waste along the street. Among the electronic waste that is thrown into the trash, LED lights are the largest.
Most people do not know that e-waste contains precious and rare metals
When people are asked why they keep their unused devices, the most common answer (46%) is that they will continue to use them in the future. 15% of respondents indicated the fact that they plan to sell or give the device to another person, and in 13% of cases the reason for this is emotional attachment to the device.
9% of people say it could be good for something else, and 7% say they don’t know how to dispose of the device properly.
To a lesser extent, other responses have been received,
For example: you didn’t have time or forgot to take it, but otherwise it doesn’t take up much space (3%); Would still be good for a vacation home (3%); the presence of sensitive data on the device (2%); And he is not motivated to recycle (1%).
said Pascal Leroy, director of the WEEE Forum, which organizes the e-waste day. “People often don’t realize how much value is hidden in these seemingly insignificant things, and how collectively they represent, on a global scale, an astonishing mass.”
“Organizations that encourage product responsibility and regulate e-waste collection collected by the WEEE Forum are constantly working to make the proper disposal of small e-waste as simple and convenient as possible for households,” LeRoy assures. “Initiatives that encourage the collection of small e-waste include, among others, placing collection boxes in supermarkets, disposing of old ones when new small devices are delivered, or placing them in designated mailboxes.”
We can talk about an amount equal to four times the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza
“As we explained in our short public video (https://youtu.be/r8XIoquM40Y), small electrical and electronic appliances such as mobile phones, electric toothbrushes, toasters and cameras are expected to produce 24.5 million tons in 2022 alone worldwide. This is four times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza, – notes Magdalena Charitanovich, who organizes World E-Waste Day on behalf of the WEEE Forum.
These small devices make up a significant 8% of e-waste
Which, together with municipal waste, ends up in landfills and then in incinerators.
However, these devices contain important raw materials that can be used to make new electronic products and other equipment, such as wind turbines, car batteries or solar panels.
This will be a major step towards a smaller carbon footprint and greener digital societies. “In the past 20 years, organizations promoting producer responsibility gathered at the WEEE Forum have collected more than 30 million tons of waste electrical and electronic equipment, disposed of it, and made it suitable for recycling. In addition, they have spent huge amounts of money on communication campaigns, however , the task ahead of them is still formidable.
E-waste is a huge burden on the environment
WEEE Forum will celebrate its 20th anniversary at its conference in December this year in the spirit of extended product responsibility. The e-waste law of the world’s first countries, EU Directive 2002/96/EC, is quite old, and will soon be renewed by lawmakers.
“The ever-increasing production, consumption and disposal of electrical appliances is placing a huge burden on the environment and climate,” said Virginius Sienkiewicz, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries. The European Commission is trying to address the problem with proposals and measures
covering the full life cycle of products, from design to assembly to proper waste management.
In order not to overburden the resources of our planet, it is of great importance to prevent the disposal of electronic waste and to recover important raw materials from it. The only way the EU can maintain its leading role in combating the rapidly growing e-waste is to make the electronic device economy as circular as possible.”
