States are supposed to do audits that should preclude that behavior, Harris said. Puckett started e-Stewards in 2010 to create a set of ethical and environmentally-friendly industry standards and prevent the export of toxic materials in lieu of federal laws. At two junkyards, Puckett finds labels from a library, a hospital and other organizations in Washington and Oregon. Global e-waste generation 2010-2019 | Statista China, with 10.1 million tonnes, was the biggest contributor to e-waste, and the United States was second with 6.9 million tonnes. BAN plans to conduct further investigations before reporting more about these recyclers. On the whole, Hong Kong has been effective in combating hazardous waste shipments, Liu said, citing 21 instances in the past three years in which cargo loads of e-waste were sent back to the U.S. Harris, from the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, said those falling commodity prices have put many companies in trouble. What is e-waste? The waste electrical and electronic equipment forum (WEEE) recycles e-waste, avoiding 2 tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of waste. Please click here to see any active alerts. We make it easy to recycle all kinds of used tech from cameras and cellphones to robot vacuums and speakers. This report first appeared on EarthFixs website. We estimated that about 50 tonnes of mercury is contained in these undocumented flows of e-waste that end up in the environment each year. Our stuff was over there, Lorch said. People are getting paid to recycle these materials through government programs and then are exporting to China and Africa.. This year's coronavirus lockdowns have exacerbated the e-waste problem. Recycling 1 million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by 3,657 U.S. homes in a year. Please check your inbox to confirm. Plastics and metals from dismantled electronics await their turn to enter a machine that shreds and sorts them into commodity type. Its still a dirty little secret, Puckett said. A rapidly warming planet poses an existential threat to all life on earth. The decline in yard trimmings generation since 1990 is largely due to state legislation discouraging yard trimmings disposal in landfills, including source reduction measures such as backyard composting and leaving grass trimmings on the yard. For more information on food management, check out Food: Material-Specific Data. Courtesy of the Basel Action Network. Environmental nightmare The e-waste that is not recycled ends up hoarded in our homes, or tossed in the bin to be buried or incinerated. 1996 - 2023 NewsHour Productions LLC. That's an increase of 21 per cent in five years, the report said. By 2019, approximately 53.6 million metric tons was produced. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/america-e-waste-gps-tracker-tells-all-earthfix, The Circuit: Tracking Americas Electronic Waste, Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia, only industrialized country in the world that hasnt ratified the treaty, Total Reclaim was suspended from the e-Stewards program, cathode ray tube monitors and batteries in bulk. Write an article and join a growing community of more than 167,900 academics and researchers from 4,669 institutions. More than 1.4 billion smartphones will be sold globally, five times the amount sold five years ago. In addition, nearly 35 million tons of MSW (11.8 percent) were combusted with energy recovery and more than 146 million tons of MSW (50 percent) were landfilled. EU pushes Apple to use same technology as rivals, As electric vehicles age, here's how the batteries are finding a second life, CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices. Global warming is just one issue cited by the report as it noted 98 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents were released into the atmosphere as a result of inadequate recycling of "undocumented" refrigerators and air conditioners. Some of the Goodwill locations in the Dell Reconnect program dismantle electronics. The total amount of e-waste generated increased by 9.2 million tonnes over the same period. UN Environment is proud to support this innovative partnership with the Government of Nigeria and the Global Environment Facility and support the countrys efforts to kick start a circular electronics system. Solutions include durable product design, buy-back and return systems for used electronics, urban mining to extract metals and minerals from e-waste, and the dematerialisation of electronics by replacing outright device ownership with rental and leasing models in order to maximise product reuse and recycling opportunities. Then they went to the Port of Seattle, across the Pacific Ocean to the Port of Hong Kong and ultimately to two junkyards in the New Territories. Oregon regulators have also asked the state Department of Justice to open an investigation into whether Total Reclaim violated consumer protection laws. Check out our Reduce, Reuse, Recycle web area for more information on recycling. Thankfully, the world is slowly waking up to the scale of this problem. The e-waste produced annually is worth over $62.5 billion, more than the GDP of most countries. Only 12.5% of e-waste is currently recycled. It is supported by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Economic Forum and coordinated by the Secretariat of the Environment Management Group (EMG). Together these three countries accounted for nearly 38 per cent of the world's e-waste last year. Only 17.4% of e-waste is known to be collected and properly recycled. The increase from 2017 to 2018 is mainly the result of EPAs inclusion of additional wasted food management pathways. Image:REUTERS/Tyrone Siu. At the Goodwill locations that dont dismantle e-waste, Dell transports the waste to other recycling partners. Most often, they traveled across the Pacific to rural Hong Kong. This makes e-waste the worlds fastest-growing domestic waste stream, they write, fueled mainly by higher consumption rates of electric and electronic equipment, short life cycles, and few options for repair.. World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use. A 2018 New York Times Magazine article depicted backyard recyclers in India, Indonesia, and Thailand who tried to recover the gold inside circuit boards by bathing them in nitric and hydrochloric acid, or by literally cooking e-waste in stoves to get at the valuable metals hidden inside the plastic, wires, and circuitry, with no protection against the emissions. Many of these workers are children, who typically receive the lowest feesas low as three dollars a dayand who often work without goggles, gloves, or other safety equipment. These products can help improve living standards, and its good that more and more people can afford them. Many thousands of tonnes also find their way around the . Global E-Waste - Statistics & Facts | Statista Workers are breaking them. The UN E-waste coalition is a group of seven UN agencies who have come together to increase collaboration, build partnerships and more efficiently provide support to Member States to address the e-waste challenge. That made it the first major computer manufacturer to ban the export of non-working electronics to developing countries. "People are getting paid to recycle these . Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, Goal 12: Sustainable Consumption and Production. The New Territories used to serve only as a pass-through for smuggled e-waste, Puckett said, where workers would unload shipping containers and put electronics on smaller trucks bound for mainland China. Jackson Lau, head of Hong Kongs recycling business association, said junkyards that import foreign e-waste often dump the components they dont sell. Shopkeepers and workers are extremely suspicious of any outsider walking through the narrow lanes, especially journalists. Dongxia Su and Jim Puckett peek over the fence of an e-waste scrapyard in the New Territories of Hong Kong. The little devices went out and spoke to us, called home regularly, saying this is where I am.. In 2018, 34.6 million tons of MSW were combusted with energy recovery. PACE is a public-private collaboration mechanism and project accelerator dedicated to bringing about the circular economy at speed and scale. According to the report, only 17.4 percent of the world's e-waste in 2019 was documented, collected, and recycled properlyleaving more than 82 percent of it essentially unaccounted for. Rubber, leather and textiles accounted for over 16 percent of MSW combustion. But what about consumers? Taken together, 2019s discarded electronics weighed as much as 350 Queen Mary 2 ocean liners. They sell the most valuable components to buyers in mainland China, while workers indiscriminately dump the worthless leftovers. Recycling rates by country 2019 Country % recycling % composting % incineration with energy recovery % incineration without energy recovery % other recovery % landfill % other disposal Australia: 24.6 19.8 0.6 0 9.5 55 0 Austria: 26.5 32.6 38.9 0 0 2.1 0 Belgium: 34.1 20.6 42.3 0.5 1.6 0 0 Costa Rica: 3 3.8 0 0 0 86.5 6.7 Czech Republic: 22.8 11.7 Their clothes are dusted black with toner ink, a probable carcinogen known to cause respiratory problems. People have the right to know where their stuff goes, he says. Paper and paperboard products have ranged between 28.4 and 23.1 percent of generation since 2010. The generation rate was 4.9 pounds per person per day in 2018, an 8 percent increase from 2017. Just over 17% of the world's e-waste is properly recycled - but the United Nations International Telecommunication Union has set a target to raise that to 30% by next year. The recycling rate (including composting) was 32.1 percent in 2018, down from 34.7 percent in 2015. They pass a steady stream of trucks carrying shipping containers from the port. Because electronic waste contains a variety of materials, including plastics, glass, and metals, recycling e-waste requires several steps to recover these resources in the most efficient manner. Its latest study suggests un-recycled household . The country is home to a patchwork of state laws. Responsibly getting rid of e-waste . Correct disposal of e-waste is often included in a company's green computing strategy. One of the surprising things we discovered is how far waste travels. However, MSW does not include everything that may be landfilled at the local level, such as construction and demolition (C&D) debris, municipal wastewater sludge, and other non-hazardous industrial wastes. Photo by Katie Campbell, KCTS9/EarthFix. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. These calculations do not include an additional 24.9 million tons of MSW that could not be addressed in the WARM model (including 17.7 million tons from food waste managed by means outside of the scope of the WARM model). The generation rate in 1960 was just 2.68 pounds per person per day. In new research, we found that Europe has the highest collection and recycling rate, covering about 42.5% of the total e-waste generated in 2019. BAN dropped off 28 tracked electronics at participating Goodwill locations and determined that six of the tracking devices went abroad to Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China and Thailand. Dumped temperature-exchange equipment, found in fridges and air conditioners, can slowly release greenhouse gases. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says, "One metric ton of circuit boards can contain 40 to 800 times the amount of gold and 30 to 40 times the amount of copper mined from one metric ton of ore in the United States." These precious materials can be reclaimed through recycling. E-waste is a health and environmental hazard because it containstoxic additives or hazardous substances such as mercury. How are other companies and countries tackling e-waste? Now I do not even dare drink water from the well.. Youll receive your first NRDC action alert and update email soon! Its hazardous waste is still getting exported to countries with fewer health and environmental safety laws, according to Pucketts latest investigation. Total Reclaim wasnt the only leading domestic e-waste recycler that collected non-working electronics with tracking devices inside that went overseas, the Basel Action Network concluded through its investigation. China, the US, and India produce the most e-waste. What is supercritical water oxidation and how can it ensure a truly circular economy? Plastics prices have bottomed out, recyclers say. Mohammed Abid, a scrap e-waste dealer, who was willing to speak, denied that ways of handling e-waste in Seelampur broke any laws or posed any dangers. When you sign up, youll become a member of NRDCs Activist Network. A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda. The report reveals the annual value of global e-waste as over $62.5 billion, more than the GDP of most countries. Readover the table below for examples. Africa: e-waste collected for recycling 2019 | Statista This includes the source reduction of wastes before they enter the waste stream and the recovery of generated waste for recycling, composting or other methods. Transforming our food systems: Feeding the world while nourishing the planet, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Download the A New Circular Vision for Global Electronics report here, Dark skies, bright future: overcoming Nigerias e-waste epidemic, Turning e-waste into gold: the untapped potential of African landfills, Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution, Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, UN report: Time to seize opportunity, tackle challenge of e-waste. READ MORE: How We Did It: Reporting The Circuit (via OPB). Photo: Andrew Magill A different study from Shantou University Medical College found high levels of lead in childrens blood in Guiyu. Katie Campbell, KCTS9/EarthFix, Ken Christensen, KCTS9/Earthfix Plastics comprised about 16 percent, and paper and paperboard made up about 12 percent. . In general, both manual labor and automation are involved during the electronic waste recycling . We would really challenge the notion that theres a mass exodus of equipment thats leaving in an unprocessed manner.. Numbers in parentheses indicate a reduction in either greenhouse gases or vehicles, and therefore represent environmental benefits. Premium Statistic Share of e-waste to be properly recycled in Europe . About 17.7 million tons of food were managed by other methods. The recommendations and analytical framework under the Road Ahead encouragethe consideration of multiple environmental benefits when developing materials management strategies. The amount of MSW recycled was 69.0 million tons and the amount composted was 24.9 million tons. This investment will help to create a system which formalizes these workers, giving them safe and decent employment while capturing the latent value in the 500,000 tonnes of e-waste disposed of in Nigeria annually. The ground at their feet is littered with broken white tubes. This equates to 1.57 jobs, $76,000 in wages and $14,101 in tax revenues for every 1,000 tons of material recycled. About the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE) It should be in this yard here, Puckett says, pointing toward the fence. And that our village will not be plagued by cancer, like the ones discovered in mainland China., Hong Kong bans the import of hazardous e-waste like cathode ray tubes and flat-screens from the United States and other developed nations, according to Environmental Protection Department spokesperson Heidi Liu.2. Photo by Katie Campbell, KCTS9/EarthFix. He said he hopes it doesnt take another 20 to end it. The new report also predicts global e-waste discarded products with a battery or plug will reach 74 million tonnes by 2030, almost a doubling of e-waste in just 16 years. Planet Aid is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that collects and recycles used clothes and shoes and supports development projects in some of the poorest parts of the world. Over time, recycling and composting rates have increased from just over 6 percent of MSW generated in 1960 to about 10 percent in 1980, to 16 percent in 1990, to about 29 percent in 2000, and to about 35 percent in 2017. The Global E-waste Monitor 2020 report found that the world dumped a record 53.6 million tonnes of e-waste last year equivalent to theweight of 350 cruise ships the size of the Queen Mary 2, or enough to form a line 125 kilometres long. Su talks to the workers and finds out many are migrants from mainland China, who are residing in Hong Kong without the official documents required for them to legally be there, she says. How Is E-Waste Recycled: The Recycling Process - Greentumble Constant tech upgrades have created a growing global e-waste challenge. While the overall damage done to the environment from all the unrecycled waste may be incalculable, the message from the report was conclusive: "The way in which we produce, consumeand dispose of e-waste is unsustainable.". According to reports from the United Nations, the United States produces 14% (more than 6 million tons) of the world's e-waste. Recyclers can also exported used electronics as long as theyve been tested and proven to be still functioning. Were struggling for survival, he said. Last May Pucketts team dropped two non-working LCD TVs, with tracking devices placed inside, at separate recyclers in Oregon. The other materials accounted for less than 10 percent each. It's hard to imagine navigating modern life without a mobile . People wait in long lines at an Apple store in Cologne, Germany, for the release of the iPhone X. Dr. Ticora V. Jones, the new head of NRDCs Science Office, seeks to deepen the role of science across the organization and beyond. He teams up with a Chinese journalist and translator, Dongxia Su, and a local driver, who will help navigate the region. 1. Puckett has been investigating the afterlife of consumer electronics for nearly two decades. Just 17.4 per cent was recycled. In 2019 alone, the world generated 53.6 million tonnes of e-waste. Home to one of the world's largest markets for e-waste, Seelampur exemplifies the challenge highlighted in a UN-led report released Thursday. In all, BANs investigation found that 65 tracked devices went through U.S. recyclers and ended up overseas. Box 500 Station A Toronto, ON Canada, M5W 1E6. Generation rose from 268.7 million tons to 292.4 million tons in 2018, mainly as a result of EPA's inclusion of additional food management pathways. Researchers later found the region had some of the highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins in the world due to its e-waste industry.1. I really hope that our land has not been contaminated, Cheung said. Because with each passing year, were also throwing more and more of these devices away and upgrading to whatever newer, lighter, slimmer iteration of them has just appeared on the market. One group, Call2Recycle, offers drop-off locations for. While the International Trade Commission through a survey of recyclers said in 2013 that a mere 0.13 percent of all used electronics collected in the U.S. went abroad for dismantling. A fire in the New Territories in early March emitted a black plume. In 2004 Dell created a take-back program called Dell Reconnect. A charger that works in all new smartphones? Of the MSW generated, approximately 69 million tons were recycled and 25 million tons were composted. But a two-year investigation by the Basel Action Network, a Seattle-based e-waste watchdog group, concluded that sometimes businesses are exporting electronics rather than recycling them. 1. The Agency is developing additional tools to provide information on other environmental benefits and will include these tools and data as they become available. [1] Along with steadily falling prices for personal technology, the electronics industrys strategy of planned obsolescence is a big reason why humans generated 59 million U.S. tons of e-waste last yearmore than any other year on record, and 21 percent more than we were generating just five years ago. The tracked electronics ended up in Mexico, Taiwan, China, Pakistan, Thailand, Dominican Republic, Canada and Kenya. Presented below are details of these trends: The generation of paper and paperboard, the largest material component of MSW, fluctuates from year to year, but has decreased from 87.7 million tons in 2000 to 67.4 million tons in 2018. This is equivalent in weight to all the commercial aircraft ever built. Seventy-seven feet, Puckett says they hear sounds of power drills and shattering glass. Electronic waste - Wikipedia Electronic waste Defective and obsolete electronic equipment Part of a series on Pollution Air pollution from a factory Air Biological Digital Electromagnetic Natural Noise Radiation Soil Solid waste Biodegradable waste Brown waste Electronic waste Battery recycling Food waste Green waste Hazardous waste But a look over the fence reveals a lot the size of a football field piled 15 feet high with printers. That's equivalent to discarding about 70 mobile phones per person in Singapore! Programme Associate at Sustainable Cycles (UNU-ViE-SCYCLE), United Nations University, Vanessa Forti is affiliated with United Nations University (UNU) / United Nations International Training and Research (UNITAR) - SCYCLE. **Includes lead-acid batteries. 69 million tons of MSW were recycled in 2018, a 2.2 percent increase from the 67.6 million tons recycled in 2015. "Neg." UK electrical waste mountain growing - BBC News How much electronic waste is safely recycled and reused? | World That doesnt surprise Jackson Lau, director of the Hong Kong Recycle Materials and Reproduction Business General Association. Little orange markers dot a satellite image. Opt not to print. By 2030, the global total is likely to swell to 74.7 million tonnes, almost a doubling of the annual amount of new e-waste in just 16 years. In 2018 the food composting rate was 4.1 percent (2.6 million tons). The hierarchy ranks the various management strategies from most to least environmentally preferred. Vines of old electric cable are strewn or rolled over the mountains of electronic trash. How much e-waste does Europe generate, recycle and repair? Source: WARM model Version 15. The law requires U.S. e-waste collectors to notify the EPA and get written approval from the receiving country before exporting these monitors, each of which carries four pounds of lead., 6. Paper and paperboard recycling, at about 46 million tons, resulted in the largest portion of the total MSW reduction over 155 MMTCO2E in 2018. While our participants defaulted to recycling as a waste management strategy . Its been almost 20 years since Puckett started this fight. Beth Johnson, head of Dells producer responsibility programs, said the company conducts regular audits of Goodwill and vets downstream recycling partners. Just 17.4 per cent was recycled. High above the Pacific Ocean in a plane headed for Hong Kong, most of the passengers are fast asleep. Photo by Ken Christensen, KCTS9/EarthFix. 17 Shocking E-Waste Statistics In 2023 - The Roundup While the analysis in Facts and Figures focuses primarily on MSW, EPA has been including estimates of C&D generation and managementas a separate non-hazardous waste stream in recent years. The new investment is expected to leverage over $13 million in additional co-financing from the private sector. The enormous opportunity of e-waste recycling - The World Economic Forum Electronics recyclers with e-Stewards certification can export the raw plastics and metals that come from dismantling electronics. Due to a change in methodology, there was an increase in the wasted food generation estimate between 2017 and 2018, which results in a lower composting rate even though the tons composted remained the same from 2017 to 2018. What is E-Waste Recycling and How Is it Done? | Earth.Org MMTCO2E is million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. E-waste: Five billion phones to be thrown away in 2022 - BBC The money helps subsidize approved recyclers like Total Reclaim, which recoup money through the program based on the amount of electronics the company collects. Electronic waste in the United States - Wikipedia Inside a quiet warehouse in the New Territories, Jim Puckett searches for clues in the clutter of electronic waste. These Facts and Figures are current through calendar year 2018. When they break they release invisible mercury vapor. Although this is down from 6.3 percent in 2017, the tons composted remained the same between 2017 and 2018 (2.6 million tons). . But if all of this missing e-waste were to be collected, handled, and disposed of properly, we could be pulling a lot more than toxic chemicals out of it. In a phone interview, co-owner Craig Lorch acknowledged that some of Total Reclaims LCD flatscreen monitors have been shipped to Hong Kong, despite the companys no-export policy. 0.42 pounds per person per day for composting. Thats about 7.3 kilograms per person and equivalent in weight to 350 cruise ships. In 2018, 2.7 million tons of selected consumer electronics were generated, representing less than 1 percent of MSW generation. Landfills, Recycling Centers & Waste Drop-Off | WM We explore how e-waste recycling is done and why we should focus on scaling it up . Over the years, his team staked out U.S. recycling operations and followed shipping containers overseas to uncover the environmental and human health consequences of the global e-waste trade. Every year, we blithely discard billions of phones, laptops, TVs, and other electronics that can end up poisoning communities around the world. Growth in the recycling rate was significant over the next 15 years, spanning until 2005. The remaining 80% is often incinerated or dumped in landfill. In 2016, almost 45 million tons of e-waste were produced globally. People stuck at home are de-cluttering, and because of the lockdowns there are few workers collecting and recycling the junk, Kees Balde, a senior program officer with the sustainable cycles program at the United Nations University, another contributor to the report, told Reuters. Official websites use .gov Electronics are often labeled as raw plastics to get through customs, Lau said, but theyre actually whole devices that the junkyard workers dismantle. The amount of MSW combusted with energy recovery was 34.6 million tons, while the amount of MSW sent to landfills was 146.2 million tons. This year's e-waste to outweigh Great Wall of China Calculate How Much E-Waste You Create & Learn How To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint With The E-Waste Recycling Calculator At Allgreenrecycling.com (800) 780-0347 Data Destruction The total generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2018 was 292.4 million tons (U.S. short tons, unless specified) or 4.9 pounds per person per day. 0.30 pounds per person per day for other food management. Subscribe to Heres the Deal, our politics If theres something that did not follow the system we would certainly want to know about it and certainly take corrective action, Johnson said.
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