Just 20 percent of e-waste is being recycled
Opting to handle your bills online keeps a lot of paper out of the bin, but the devices you use to go online eventually die anyway. If this "e-waste" ends up in a landfill, the energy and materials that went into manufacturing and delivering those devices are lost. And besides being unsustainable, disposal can expose people to hazardous metals and compounds.
Apart from a story here and there about a new e-waste recycling project, it's hard to get an idea of just how much e-waste is getting tossed around the world. A new report from the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union helps paint a picture by providing some global statistics.
Altogether, the report estimates that nearly 45 million tons of electronics were thrown out in 2016-and only about 20 percent of it is known to have been recycled. The report puts the value of the raw materials in that 45 million tons of e-waste at about $55 billion ($9 billion from smartphones alone), but most of that waste isn't being recovered.
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