‘Amidst the encouraging uptake of solar panels and electronic equipment to combat the climate crisis and drive digital progress, the rise of e-waste requires urgent attention,’ says Nikhil Seth, executive director of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) on the publication of The Global E-waste Monitor 2024 report, which records 62 million tonnes of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE or e-waste) generated in 2022 worldwide, with most of it generated in Europe.
The report concludes that e-waste is increasing five times faster than its documented recycling. Globally, the annual generation of e-waste is growing at a rapid pace: at a rate of 2.6 million tonnes per year. If this continues, it is estimated that by 2030 the amount of waste will reach 82 million tonnes, a further 33% increase over the 2022 figure.
On the other hand, it is estimated that recycling would not be able to keep pace with this growing trend. If in 2022 the collection and recycling rate was less than a quarter (22.3%) of the total mass of e-waste for the year, by 2030 it is expected to fall to 20%. According to the report, this is ‘due to the widening gap between recycling efforts and the staggering growth in e-waste generation worldwide’.
This worrying statistic, coupled with insufficient regulation by governments, explains Cosmas Luckyson Zavazava, director of the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Telecommunication Development Bureau, ‘raises the alarm for strong regulations to drive collection and recycling’. The document is accompanied by a wealth of data that gives an insight into the true extent of e-waste and the work being done to process and recycle it.
The majority of global e-waste is small equipment such as cameras, microwaves and e-cigarettes. In 2022, 20 billion of this type of waste was generated, representing around a third of the total. This is followed by large equipment such as washing machines, temperature exchange equipment, screens and monitors, small devices, lamps and photovoltaic panels.
LAMPS, SOLAR PANELS AND VAPERS
The report devotes special attention to three types of waste. Lamps, which are the least recycled category of e-waste: only 5% is collected despite the fact that they contain valuable resources such as rare earth elements, metal and glass, as well as hazardous resources such as mercury.
With regard to photovoltaic panels, it acknowledges that they ‘play a key role in the transition to green energy’, but their accelerated deployment raises ‘some concern’ about their recycling in the future. The reason: a relatively short lifetime (3-4 years) of small-scale off-grid solar products in low- and middle-income countries.
‘Although waste generated (both on-grid and off-grid) remains low at the moment, at 600 million kg per year, it is expected to quadruple to 2.4 billion kg by 2030,’ the report says.
The third type of waste to which the UNITAR research team draws attention is vapers, which ‘are booming’. In 2022, the volume of e-cigarettes sold was estimated to be more than 42 million kg (including the weight of batteries) ‘many of which are disposable and become instant waste’.
The report acknowledges that this type of waste ‘contains not only plastic, but also lithium-ion batteries, a heating element, and a circuit board’. ‘It is clear that recycling will be fundamental to tackling the e-waste problem,’ the report says.
This data foreshadows a future in which, if adequate measures to manage waste are not implemented, e-waste will multiply. ‘The ecological transition and the connection of off-grid communities will lead to a four-fold increase in waste from photovoltaic panels, from 600 million kg in 2022 to 2.4 billion kg in 2030,’ the report warns.
The situation is particularly worrying for Europe, which in 2022 was the region with the highest volume of WEEE per capita, surpassing Oceania (16.1 kg) and the Americas (14.1 kg): each European generated 17.6 kg. These three continents, despite producing the most waste, also had the highest recycling rate. 7.3 kg were recovered in Europe, and 6.66 kg and 4.2 kg in Oceania and the Americas, respectively.
The report recognises that there is a correlation between wealth and the volume of waste (and recycling): wealthier countries, because they have more purchasing power, consume more electronic goods, and therefore throw more WEEE away. It is estimated that 14 billion kg of e-waste was improperly disposed of globally in 2022.
