Climate Action
Gadgets and Gizmos and the Internet’s Trash Problem
October 29, 2025
Pause. Before you continue reading, take a moment to look around and notice the number of electrical devices you have in your home right now. From the phone in your hand to the laptop resting on your desk, chances are you’re surrounded by screens and gadgets you rely on every day.
Globally, approximately 5.5 billion people used the internet in 2024, connecting through billions of devices, including phones, computers, tablets, and more. In the United States, the average American household with access to the internet has 17 internet-connected devices. In Germany, approximately half of households (49.2%) use more than four internet-connected devices, with 23.5% using more than seven. In India, where internet access is still expanding, the number of internet connections surpassed 970 million by June 2024, reflecting a growing reliance on digital devices.
All the while tech companies continue to churn out newer products that are faster and smarter, making it very enticing for us to keep upgrading and buying yet more gadgets.
But this relentless drive for convenience comes with a hidden problem: what happens to our old electronics when we’re done with them? Old devices become electronic waste, or e-waste. The Global E-waste Monitor found that 62 billion kilograms of e-waste were discarded worldwide in 2022. Astonishingly, only 22.3% of that was collected and recycled safely.
What is E-waste?
E-waste refers to discarded electrical products that contain circuitry, a power source, or use a battery. E-waste encompasses a wide range of household appliances, including air fryers, washing machines, microwaves, and internet routers, as well as personal devices such as phones, cameras, and laptops, among many others.
Our electronics contain a range of over 60 metals, including copper, gold, silver, and aluminum. While these metals can be recycled and reused, they are non-renewable because we cannot create new atoms of them, and the Earth’s supply of all base elements is finite. E-waste can also contain heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium, which can be toxic to people and the environment.
The Toxic Reality of our Electronics
As rain and snow fall on landfills, water seeps through waste, including dumped electronics, and picks up pollutants, forming what’s known as landfill leachate. This can contain the heavy metals used in old computers and other gadgets and impact everything they come into contact with, from the soil, our groundwater, oceans and rivers, and wildlife. Heavy metal exposure can affect some animals’ growth, body condition, and immune system, making them more susceptible to disease. Researchers have even found heavy metal pollution in wildlife dating back to the European Middle Ages. Ultimately this process can endanger human health too.
Here’s how. Heavy metals bioaccumulate in living organisms, meaning they build up in their body tissue and enter the food chain. In water systems polluted by heavy metals, fish and plants absorb the metals through their skin. So, if we consume tuna that has been contaminated by mercury, we in turn become contaminated too.
Heavy metals can also lower the soil’s pH, which affects its fertility and lower soil pH also ironically, allows for more metals to accumulate in vegetables. Again, just as with fish, when we eat these vegetables we are also consuming the heavy metals they have absorbed. Over time, this buildup can lead to serious health problems, like respiratory issues, neurological problems, and cancer.
People who work on landfill sites, often called trash pickers, and unregulated recycling sites face the greatest risk of exposure to heavy metals. These communities typically live closer to these sorts of landfills sites, meaning they are often breathing in toxic particles and are much more likely to be ingesting contaminated water and food. Researchers have found traces of these metals in the blood, placenta, and hair of the residents of communities near dumping sites and landfills. Often children work at scavenging on landfills where they too are exposed to hazardous chemicals that can harm them at critical stages of their development.
Out of Mind, Out of Sight…Right?
The issue is all of us are part of the problem. In 2022, people threw out an estimated 14 billion kilograms of e-waste in normal waste bins. After collection, a lot of e-waste doesn’t stay local. About 65% of international e-waste shipments go undocumented and unregulated. Many of these illegal exports end up in countries that may lack waste management systems, like Malaysia or Ghana. Because many higher-income countries have strict environmental regulations, and recycling e-waste responsibly is costly, making it more appealing to send the waste elsewhere.
Shipping waste abroad reflects a “not in my backyard” mindset, where countries push the environmental burden to other nations instead of managing it on their own. The Basel Convention is an international treaty that prohibits developed countries from transporting hazardous waste, such as e-waste, to less developed countries. Unfortunately, the United States has not ratified the treaty, so international authorities cannot legally hold it to those standards.
In many of these countries, informal recycling is a way for low-income communities to earn a living but workers often burn e-waste to recover the valuable metals, releasing more toxic emissions.
The Right Thing To Do With Your E-waste
So, what should you do with the electronics you no longer need?
Before tossing your gadget in the garbage, see if you can repurpose it at home. Some creative people have turned old Macs into aquariums! If you’re not feeling crafty, consider donating your device to someone in need. For example, PCs for People refurbishes and distributes electronics to low-income households.
Whatever you do, don’t throw e-waste in your household trash, even if it’s just an old charging cable or electric toothbrush. When in doubt, a quick search for “e-waste recycling near me” can point you in the right direction. If you’re in Ireland, Italy, Germany, or Slovenia, WEEE4Future lists local drop-off spots for your old electronics. They even provide an e-waste calculator to help you see what materials you’re recycling and how much pollution you’re preventing.
Although the United States lacks federal guidance on e-waste disposal, some corporations, such as Best Buy and Amazon, offer resources for recycling electronic waste. Call2Recycle offers drop-off locations for battery recycling, and Earth911 and Greener Gadgets are also great sources for finding recycling and repair options.
Right to Repair laws allow consumers to fix their own products instead of going back to the original company for service. Also, push for further efforts on extended producer responsibility policies. This places the end-of-life responsibility for electronics on the corporation that originally created the product. The EU has a similar law, which requires companies to finance the collection, treatment, and recycling of their products.
These choices help prevent waste from being added to landfills, but our own actions can only do so much. The real responsibility lies with corporations that continue to design products with planned obsolescence, use hazardous materials, and knowingly pass on the environmental costs to everybody else.
The Future Depends On Our Next Steps
We can all make conscious decisions to preserve our resources and prevent further e-waste. Next time you consider upgrading your phone or laptop, consider where your current device might end up and even ask yourself, do I really need an upgrade?
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