The worldwide explosion in electronic device adoption has created an equally incendiary waste problem, according to the United Nations University and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative. Manufacturing of various electronic devices uses about $21 billion worth of gold and silver annually; however, the UN says less than 15 percent of these precious metals are recovered. Discarding such volumes of e-waste has the potential to create health and environmental hazards. Other valuable metals -- copper, tin, cobalt, and palladium – could also be recovered. Plastics in e-waste is also problematic. The UN estimates if only half of the plastics in e-waste generated by the European Union alone were recycled, approximately 5 million kilowatt-hours of energy could be saved and CO2 emissions would be slashed by 2 million tons. “We need to recover rare elements to continue manufacturing IT products,” said Dr. Ruediger Kuehr, Executive Secretary of the Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP) Initiative and head of the United Nations University StEP coordinating unit based in Bonn, Germany. “One day — likely sooner than later — people will look back on such costly inefficiencies and wonder how we could be so short- sighted and wasteful of natural resources.” These organizations recently hosted the GeSI and StEP E-Waste Academy, training for policymakers and small businesses held in Accra, Ghana. (Science Daily)(United Nations University)(United Nations University – Press Release)
