A new report by the UN has found that there are 42 millions of tons of electronic and electrical equipment discarded by consumers every year and this includes many valuable and renewable materials including gold worth more than £7bn.
The report has been carried out by the United Nations University and has revealed that e-waste is becoming a serious issue around the globe, with projections suggesting it will reach 50 megatons by 2018. Even worse for us, Brits are amongst the biggest generators of this type of junk.
As well as that huge amount of gold resource being lost, the report found that over 1000 tons of silver and 16 megatons of reusable steel were going to waste with people simply throwing out their old electrical equipment. In terms of danger to the environment the report revealed that the waste may include an alarming 4,400 tons of ozone-depleting chemicals and 2.2 megatons of lead glass which can pollute both water supplies and soil.
The reasons behind this huge pile of discarded tech is closely linked to the speed at which we are innovating and which new technology is needed to keep up with the pace of the world. Rising sales of technology are great but the new products being produced seem to have a shorter and shorter life cycle, which contributes to this huge and dangerous volume of e-waste which is threatening to pollute the world over.
The majority of e-waste was found to be either domestic appliances or office equipment and of course, as a responsible business owner we believe our clients know better than to simply dump their office equipment when they could be utilising our high quality recycling service that not only ensures your old equipment doesn’t end up in a landfill or as part of this dangerous e-waste mine, and instead is resold, recycled or repurposed in some way, as well as giving you a cash fee for the hardware.
Britain doesn’t rank well when it comes to recycling e-waste, it actually comes in 5th in the weight of material discarded per person, with each Brit said to generate 23.5kg of e-waste a year. The UK also ranked highly in terms of total amount of e-waste and the figure of 1.5 megatons produced a year is a real shock as it is almost in line with India, a country which has 20 times the population.
There is no reason for a modern business to discard of their e-waste irresponsibly. Partnering with an effective and socially responsible computer recycling company ensures your waste is dealt with in a professional and legal manner, avoiding any risks for your company in terms of liability and also ensuring you are not part of this huge e-waste problem. We are keen to see more recycling and less dumping so the predictions of the UN don’t become a reality and we are readily available to provide quality, efficient and quick IT recycling services, with cash back on your goods.
