Have you ever wondered what happens to that old iPhone you just replaced or that old computer monitor you just threw out? Well, they get tossed into e-waste dumping grounds in some developing nation somewhere, all 41.8 million metric tons of them. You read that right, 41.8 million metric tons, or over 92 billion pounds of electronics are thrown out every year. While around 15% is properly recycled, the rest is thrown into a pit and left to pollute the environment.
The amount of old electronics we throw in the trash is staggering, and now a new report from the United Nations University quantifies the extent to which we’re clogging our planet with discarded iPods and rusty washing machines. In the US alone, we tossed out 7.1 million metric tons of e-waste, or nearly 16 billion pounds. That means we created a digital-goods graveyard in a single year larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza, which is around 13 billion pounds. Globally, people produced 41.8 million metric tons of e-waste in 2014, or over 92 billion pounds. That’s more than seven Great Pyramids’ worth of crapped-out Blackberry phones, forsaken Toshiba TVs, and human misery. Considering that the amount of gold found in e-waste is equivalent to 11% of the amount of gold produced in mines each year, we’re missing out on recovering a host of valuable materials. Worse yet, the hellish underground economy that has sprung up around international e-waste dumping grounds in China and Ghana is leading to “environmental catastrophes.” Since only 15% of the e-waste produced is properly recycled through take-back programs, most of the electronic detritus gets dumped without meeting pollution and waste standards.