Title: Recycling Your Old Cell Phone: Here's What Happens
Headings: Recycling Your Old Cell Phone: Here's What Happens
Recycling Your Old Cell Phone: Here's What Happens
Environment
June 18, 2018
A World of E-Waste
Finding Gold in Waste
Pledge Now:
What to Know

Content: In the US, more than 16 billion pounds of e-waste were discarded in 2014, or roughly 50 pounds per person. By the end of 2018, e-waste is expected to grow to 50 million tons annually. Read More: The EU Gets 1 Step Closer to Banning Conflict Minerals From Supply Chains
The vast majority of e-waste isn’t disposed of in an environmentally friendly way. In fact, only around 15% to 20% of e-waste is recycled around the world and recycling methods vary substantially. A lot of countries simply ship their e-waste to other countries, where toxic e-waste substances like lead, cadmium, and mercury cause environmental and health problems. In 2016, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology put tracking devices on 200 discarded devices in the US and followed them to Hong Kong, Mexico, Taiwan, China, Pakistan, Thailand, Dominican Republic, Canada, and Kenya, demonstrating the sprawling nature of e-waste management. Fairphone/Closing The Loop
“One of the biggest challenges facing recyclers today is waste minimization,” Sean Magann, VP of Sales and Marketing for Sims Recycling Solutions, told Global Citizen over email. “ Desktop computers were once made out of almost 100% metals and these metals were easy to recover, but now more items are plastic based and the average size of each device has decreased." “From a commodity point of view, you have to do a lot more for metal recovery,” he added. “