E-Waste by the numbers: Infographic

[Julio Franco]

Who doesn't love a cool gadget that can make your life easier on the day to day? Evidently tech enthusiasts like ourselves tend to spend more on electronics and upgrade more often than the average consumer, but as tech has grown more mainstream than ever, and with product cycles accelerated on the mobile market, electronic waste is becoming an equally expanding issue. From Wikipedia:

There is a lack of consensus as to whether the term (e-waste) should apply to resale, reuse, and refurbishing industries, or only to product that cannot be used for its intended purpose. Informal processing of electronic waste in developing countries may cause serious health and pollution problems, though these countries are also most likely to reuse and repair electronics.

All electronic scrap components, such as CRTs, may contain contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, or brominated flame retardants. Even in developed countries recycling and disposal of e-waste may involve significant risk to workers and communities and great care must be taken to avoid unsafe exposure in recycling operations and leaching of material such as heavy metals from landfills and incinerator ashes.

The infographic below puts e-waste figures in perspective.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/51622-e-waste-by-the-numbers-infographic.html

 

[SNGX1275]

I am really surprised the monitor recycling numbers aren't higher in the US. You can't legally throw them away in my town, and I suspect it is like that almost everywhere. Our city recycling center actually charges to accept them.

But.

If you donate them to Goodwill, they recycle them for you, for free. So if you are sitting on a pile of old monitors that you don't know what to do with, give them to Goodwill. I was told by the one here they don't even check to see if they work because they don't resell them, they just recycle them all.

 

[TorturedChaos]

I find a lot of things in the rural disposal sites aka "Green Cans" that are not supposed to be thrown in there. By buddy pulled up one time, and the local power company was unloading a full pickup load of old CRT monitors they had recently replaced .