There’s 38,000 tonnes of copper locked up in unused electrical gadgets like old phones in English households worth something like $348M in the current market according to a new study.
The startling finding has led to renewed calls from across the industry globally to do more to recycle electronic waste—also called ‘e-waste’—and kick start a new wave of what is known as ‘urban mining’.
The idea of urban mining has been around for decades at least, but its becoming more urgent as all that old technology piles up at home in drawers and cupboards—the world now has something like 7B smartphones in use—and the world appears to be facing one of its worst ever copper supply crises.
The UK study by Material Focus’ Recycle Your Electricals Campaign said there were 823M unused or broken tech items hiding in “drawers of doom” at home, including more than 627M cables—enough to stretch to the moon and back. That’s enough to provide 30% of the copper needed for the UK’s planned transition to a decarbonised electricity grid by 2030.
Cables & wires are a particular problem with UK households throwing away or holding on to an average of 23 cables. Research by the Critical Minerals Association says they contain at least 20% copper, meaning that across all UK households, cables alone could contribute 3,251 tonnes of metal.
Bloomberg Intelligence also weighed in, saying the demands of renewable power from wind and solar farms, and the switch from petrol and diesel cars to electric, could keep copper demand growing at 2.5 to 3% per annum—“Better recycling practices and efficiencies will be needed to close this gap”, it said.
It’s a global problem of course. Each Australian produced an average of 20kg of e-waste in 2019 compared with the global average of 7kg, and with the country’s electronic trash projected to rise by nearly 30% by 2030.
Consumers have been somewhat hesitant to recycle due to low awareness of so-called “hand-off” options, as well as the perceived inconvenience or hassle involved. Governments are slowly tackling the problem—including in Australia—but as the UK study shows, its a problem that isn’t going away.