Learn more about how using your smartphone affects the environment.
Smartphones are much more than just wires and plastic, they are also a source of highly valuable metals, including gold, copper and aluminium.
Each year, around 40 million tons of electronic waste is generated globally. Most of it winds up in the developing coutries.
Some of the most popular destinations for dumping computer hardware include China, India and Nigeria. It can be 10 times cheaper for a “recycler” to ship waste to China than to dispose of it properly at home.
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For this reason, workers in e-waste dumps in the developing world carefully sort the smartphones’ hardware and melt down the most valuable parts. Also some of these parts contain toxic substances that when melted down, the machines release even more toxins into the air, ground, and water. Although developing countries occasionally attempt to ban e-waste, the shipments can be vital to local economies. Some disposal sites employ more than 100000 people. In China, the average worker can earn between $2 and $4 a day for disassembling what was once someone else’s computer.
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