When you get a new phone, where does the old one go? How about tv's and laptops? Over a billion phones were manufactured in 2024. Where are the ones they replaced?
We suppose they're getting re-cycled somehow. Some do, around 22% of them. It's a market niche that some companies have jumped into. SK Tes, one of those, operates at a global level to process "IT assets" discarded by organizations. At 40 facilities around the world, they re-purpose over 3 million annually; that's hundreds of millions of pounds of electronics.
The other 78% of throw-away technology is dumped or unsafely "processed."
Just the sheer volume is a global problem. Much of it ends up in burning piles in southeast Asia and Africa. Serious pollution results in health risks such as cancer, while 80% of the children in the capitol of Ghana have lead poisoning.
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