Electronic waste becomes an environmental and health problem when discarded electrical and electronic products are dumped, burned, dismantled or recycled without appropriate controls. The devices themselves can contain valuable materials as well as hazardous substances, so the outcome depends heavily on how they are collected and managed at end of life. For the wider prevention, recovery and waste-systems context, use our Waste & Circular Resources gateway.
Our full list of articles centered around E-Waste:
- Digital Sustainability: A Comprehensive Guide
- Reduce E-Waste: Sustainability for Old, Functional Gadgets
- Minimizing E-waste In The Digital Age – The Green Revolution
- Solving the E-waste Problem: Are We Doing Enough
- How Younger Generations Can Help Solve the E-waste Problem
words Ana Yong
How Much E-Waste Is Generated?
The world generated an estimated 62 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022, and only 22.3% was documented as formally collected and recycled. These are the latest global figures reported by the Global E-waste Monitor 2024.
E-waste includes discarded electrical and electronic equipment such as computers, phones, screens, household appliances and other products with electrical components. It becomes waste when a product is unwanted, broken or obsolete rather than simply because a newer model exists.
Rapid innovation can shorten replacement cycles, but the global e-waste stream also includes products that fail, become uneconomic to repair, lose software support or are displaced as households and businesses acquire more electronic equipment.
Working devices can sometimes remain in use through resale, donation or refurbishment, including older phones. The challenge is to make those reuse routes practical while ensuring genuinely end-of-life equipment reaches appropriate collection and recovery systems. For the phone-specific choice, see our guide to the impact of refurbished phones on e-waste.
E-waste growth has many causes, including rising device ownership, faster replacement cycles, product failure, repair barriers, software and support changes, and consumer preference for newer technology. The mix varies by product and market, so it is more useful to examine design, repairability and product lifespan than to assume one motive explains every discarded device.
Repair can extend product life, but whether it is practical depends on spare-part availability, repairability, cost, warranty and support, the severity of the fault and how urgently the equipment is needed. Designing electronics for longer life and easier repair can therefore reduce waste upstream.
Data security is a legitimate concern when devices are reused or recycled, but it is a management issue rather than a reason to discard electronics with general waste. Reputable collection and recycling programs can provide data-erasure or destruction processes; users should follow device-manufacturer or local guidance before handing equipment over.
Environmental and Health Effects of E-Waste
The main danger is not ordinary use of a functioning device, but unsafe handling after it becomes waste. The World Health Organization warns that unsound recycling can release hazardous substances including lead, mercury and dioxins into air, soil, dust and water.
Because electronics contain both recoverable materials and potentially hazardous components, they are better handled through appropriate collection, reuse, refurbishment and specialist e-waste recovery systems than mixed indiscriminately with ordinary waste.
Health evidence is strongest around exposure at informal or poorly controlled recycling sites. WHO identifies children and pregnant women as particularly vulnerable and links such exposure with several groups of adverse outcomes:
- Adverse pregnancy and neonatal outcomes, including higher risks of premature birth and stillbirth in exposed populations.
- Neurodevelopmental, learning and behavioural effects, particularly where lead exposure occurs.
- Reduced lung and respiratory function and increased asthma incidence in communities exposed to contaminated air at e-waste recycling sites.
- Unsafe recycling can expose workers and nearby communities to pollutants through the inhalation of contaminated air.
Transboundary E-Waste and Informal Recycling
Used electronics and e-waste move across borders for legitimate reuse, repair and material recovery, but international trade becomes a serious problem when waste is mislabelled, illegally exported or sent to places without safe recycling infrastructure.
International rules distinguish legitimate movements for reuse or recovery from waste shipments that require controls. Under the Basel Convention e-waste amendments, covered transboundary movements are subject to prior informed consent requirements. WHO notes that informal recycling can create serious exposure risks where dismantling, open burning, heating or acid leaching release pollutants into air, soil, dust and water.
The problem is therefore not simply that used electronics cross borders. It is that some old devices and waste streams reach communities without adequate safeguards, while valuable metals and components are lost instead of being recovered through environmentally sound systems.
The most useful response is a hierarchy: keep electronics in use longer where practical, repair or refurbish working products, and use appropriate collection and recycling systems when equipment genuinely reaches end of life. Our related e-waste guides above cover those practical routes.
Resources Relating to The Effects of E-Waste
Why E-Waste is so Dangerous and How the ‘Right to Repair’ Will Save the Environment by Citizen Truth, 4 November 2018
Why E-Waste is so Dangerous and How the ‘Right to Repair’ Will Save the Environment by Citizen Truth, 4 November 2018
Health hazards caused by unorganised e-waste disposal by V. Ranganathan for yourstory.com, 28 June 2018
E-waste and the infrastructures of digitalization by Diggit Magazine (undated)
Toxic E-Waste Dumped in Poor Nations, Says United Nations by John Vidal for The Guardian and United Nations University, 16 December 2013