Around 50 of the world’s 90 naturally occurring elements are used in over 25 billion electronic ‘connected things’. That includes 6.4 billion smart phones and over 2 billion PCs. All those device components require different materials to provide the required functionality. A typical smart phone or tablet uses over 30 different elements. A computer may use slightly less, but also has much more plastic and metallic materials incorporated into it.
To give a sense of the use of these elements:
Mining and extracting all these elements have a massive impact on the environment. Although all the components in a single phone only weigh around 160 grams, to make them requires about 30 kg of ore to be mined from the earth. That then needs to be processed to make the materials for the components creates around 85 kg of waste (much of it toxic). Rare earths not actually rare but are difficult (and expensive) to extract and purify. Their extraction and processing create lots of toxic and radioactive waste. Yet barely 1% of rare earths are recycled.
A recent study by Josh Lewpawsky (Europe Now, 2019) reinforces the issue that the real e-waste problem is created upstream, in manufacturing. Whilst household e-waste has grown significantly in Europe to around 3.8 million tonnes per year (2016), it is dwarfed by the e-waste created in manufacturing which still runs at around 18.7 million tonnes, more than 4.8 times larger than WEEE arising from households. But even this masks the real problem as much of the early manufacture (of materials and components) does not occur in Europe and so is not included.
For more information on the materials (See RSC’s Precious Elements) and for their supply chain, see Materials Matter at the Restart Project.
