The Issue with E-Waste

E-Waste is the fastest growing type of waste in the world today, expanding at around 3-5% pa. (Schwarzer et al., 2005). With the U.S currently at the top of the ladder for e-waste production. Last year along the U.S produced 9.6 million tonnes of e-waste. (Earth911. 2016). That is an insane number along but when you add the rest of the world you get between 20 to 50 million tonnes generated. (Schwarzer et al., 2005). What makes this worse is the amount of waste that is recycled, 12.5 percent. (Button. 2017). This leads it to the main problems of e-waste; firstly and most importantly its current effect on nature. Electronics are made from varying materials of which not all are environmentally friendly and are toxic to flora and fauna as well. Th article 

Contamination of solid waste from toxic materials in electronic waste goes into a massive amount of detail explaining this and just how each material affects our world. This also contributes to the magnitude of the problem. E-Waste is a reflection of our want for immediate progression and development without care for what happens to our pevious developments, its time to make change and begin a new way to look at our old technology.