The Global E-waste Monitor 2020, a new report produced in collaboration with the UN Environment Program (UNEP), found that a record 53.6 million metric tons of electronic waste was generated last year. Raw materials contained in that waste had approximately $57 billion in value.
Now in its third edition, the 2020 report was created by UN University’s Global E-waste Statistics Partnership, the International Telecommunication Union, the International Solid Waste Association, and UNEP with contributions from the World Health Organization and the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.
Electronic waste is defined in the report as discarded products with a battery or plug. Last year’s record amount of electronic waste was up 21% in five years, the Global E-waste Monitor 2020 said. Regionally, Asia generated the largest volume of e-waste, 24.9 million metric tons (Mt), with the Americas generating 13.1 Mt, Europe at 12 Mt, Africa with 2.9 mt, and Oceana following with 0.7 Mt, according to the researchers.
By 2030, the report predicts that global e-waste will nearly double to reach 74 million metric tons, driven by increased consumption of electric and electronic equipment that has “short life-cycles and few options for repair.”
“Only 17.4% of 2019’s e-waste was collected and recycled,” the report authors wrote. “This means that gold, silver, copper, platinum and other high-value, recoverable materials conservatively valued at $57 billion — a sum greater than the gross domestic product of most countries — were mostly dumped or burned rather than being collected for treatment and reuse.”
Although electric and electronic equipment contain as many as 69 elements from the periodic table and the cost of recycling the materials in them can be high, e-waste could still represent an important source of secondary materials in a circular economy, the authors said.
“By improving e-waste collection and recycling practices worldwide, a considerable amount of secondary raw materials — precious, critical, and non-critical — could be made readily available to re-enter the manufacturing process while reducing the continuous extraction of new materials,” the report found.
