The average Australian produces about 20kgs of e-waste a year, triple the global average of 7kgs, and its about to get a lot worse says a new study.
The federal government’s latest national waste report says the country creates 500,000 tonnes of e-waste a year. Sadly only about half of that was recycled in 2022, with just 35% of the valuable materials it contains—including copper—recovered.
It will soon be even tougher with the amount of waste projected to rise nearly 30% by 2030 to 657,000 tonnes.Of course a big source is our insatiable demand for new tech, but the other is in-built obsolescence, with tech companies not taking enough responsibility for electronic waste.
Another big wave is expected to be when Microsoft shifts from Windows 10 to Windows 11 by October, effectively making older models obsolete. Here that could affect 6M computers!
It’s heartening that the copper industry is already very active at recycling and globally up to a third of copper used annually is from recycling. More than 65% of all copper ever mined is still in use, but we could do more if we can capture it.
Apart from the value we could be mining from old PCs & phones just sending tech to landfill is dangerous and harmful to us and the environment. Old computers catch fire and the leaching of metals into land and water is already an issue.
We’re tackling different parts of the e-waste problem already, but I think it needs to be more comprehensive. For example there’s the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme as well as Right to Repair laws which currently only apply to cars, vans and utes. What about solar panels or the myriad number of other tech out there?
This needs a big approach that includes all levels of government across the country proposing new laws & tougher legislation. We also need to come up with incentives for consumers to go out of their way to recycle old tech.
Without new solutions I suspect we’ll all be drowning in ageing technology soon.
Cheers, John Fennell.