Electronic waste worth £34bn piling up in 'toxic mine', warns UN report
Electronic waste worth £34bn piling up in 'toxic mine',
warns UN report
Very little of the discarded electrical equipment, which
includes gold and silver, is being recycled - and Britain is among the worst
offenders
By Cahal Milmo Sunday 19 April 2015
Gold worth more than £7bn is being thrown away amid the
42 million tons of electronic and electrical equipment discarded by consumers
each year, according to United Nations experts.
A report by the United Nations University (UNU) reveals
that the amount of “e-waste” generated globally is increasing by two million
tons a year and will reach 50 megatons by 2018 – with Britons among the
planet’s biggest generators of hi-tech junk.
The study warns that less than 16 per cent of global
e-waste is being diverted from landfill into recycling and reuse – representing
the loss of an “urban mine” of potentially recyclable materials worth more than
£34bn.
Among the resources being lost annually, as millions of
items from mobile phones to fridges are inadequately disposed of, are 300 tons
of gold (equivalent to more than a 10th of global production in 2013) as well
as 1,000 tons of silver worth £400m and 16 megatons of steel with a value of
£6.5bn.
The fast-growing mountain of waste also contains alarming
quantities of toxins, including 4,400 tons of ozone-depleting chemicals and 2.2
megatons of lead glass weighing more than the equivalent of the Empire State
Building.
Heavy metals and other chemicals commonly found in
electronics such as mercury, cadmium and beryllium can leach into the ground
and water supplies, causing kidney and liver damage and impaired mental
development.
David Malone, the UN under-secretary and rector of the
Tokyo-based UNU, said: “Worldwide, e-waste constitutes a valuable ‘urban mine’
– a large potential reservoir of recyclable materials. At the same time, the
hazardous content of e-waste constitutes a ‘toxic mine’ that must be managed
with extreme care. There is a large portion of e-waste that is not being
collected and treated in an environmentally sound manner.”
The researchers said that the unquenchable appetite for
electronics and appliances both in developed and developing countries was
generating enough waste to fill 1.2 million 40-ton lorries each year. A queue
of such lorries would stretch from New York to Tokyo and back again.
Rising sales of technology and the shortening life cycle
of that equipment are the key drivers of this avalanche of e-waste, with
consumers unwilling to hold on to a product when a newer model or innovation
comes along, even though the item may still be functional.
A separate study in Britain by Wrap, the
government-backed charity which encourages recycling, found that 23 per cent of
electric and electronic waste collected from municipal sites was still in good
working order or required only a small amount of repair.
The UNU research found that rather than being dominated by
discarded electronics such as mobile phones or computers, the majority (nearly
60 per cent) of e-waste consisted of large and small domestic appliances or
office equipment. It included 12.8 megatons of smaller items such as microwaves
or toasters and 18.8 megatons of “white goods” such as fridges, washing
machines, dryers and other large appliances.
Britain is identified as among the world’s most
profligate producers of e-waste, ranking fifth in the weight of material
discarded per inhabitant, with each Briton generating 23.5kg each year. The UK
was also sixth worldwide in the total amount of e-waste the country generated,
with some 1.5 megatons – barely 100,000 tons less than India which has 20 times
the population.
Experts said Britain, in common with other European Union
countries, was missing an opportunity to ensure that its inhabitants’ appetite
for consumer durables results in a thriving recycling industry. The UNU report
said that only one-third of e-waste in the UK is recycled through recognised
schemes – a figure that must reach 85 per cent under EU rules by 2019. Federico
Magalini, a UNU researcher, said: “In the UK we are seeing that the ‘lifespan’
of an electric or electronic product may be particularly short.
“We should not simply try to stop consumption to minimise
the amount of waste being generated, but should instead make sure that it is
properly collected and recycled. There is an opportunity to create jobs and
extract those resources currently being discarded.”
In the meantime, the authorities face a mammoth task in
trying to shut down illegal waste exports, including e-waste which is sent to
the developing world where components are melted down in often primitive
conditions.
The Environment Agency estimates that some 11,500
shipping containers are illegally exported from the UK each year containing
either household or electrical waste – the equivalent of 200,000 tons of
material a year.
An Essex man last year became the first person in Britain
to be jailed for the illegal export of e-waste after he was sentenced to 16
months’ imprisonment for smuggling 46 tons of material to Africa.
Joe Benson, 54, was found to have packed containers with
waste including broken cathode ray tubes and ozone-depleting refrigerators
bound for Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Ghana. He stood to make £8,000 per
container.
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