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I wonder if the decrease in desktop computers, CRT screens, printers, scanners, fax machines, etc. lowered overall e-waste volumes at all. Even though there are

I wonder if the decrease in desktop computers, CRT screens, printers, scanners, fax machines, etc. lowered overall e-waste volumes at all. Even though there are so many phones, each one is a lot smaller than personal electronics used to be.

massysett 3y ago
All this assumes that volume is the problem. Deliberately extreme example: cleaning up my yard results in a large volume of heavy waste - enough bags of waste to equal hundreds, maybe thousands, of discarded phones. But surely all the metals in the phones - maybe even from just ONE phone - will have much more environmental impact than a mixture of dead leaves, grass, and old mulch from my yard.
- solardev 3y ago
  Well, yeah, that's why I mentioned other electronics instead of biodegradables. Is there something especially bad in the raw materials of phones that older bigger electronics didn't have?
  - topaz0 3y ago
    For one thing an old desktop computer is almost entirely air by volume... Most of the reason that phones are small is that they've managed to make them without having to have a lot of air inside.
    - solardev 3y ago
      Sure, but every PCB in it is still bigger than a phone. I mean, this isn't some weird hypothetical situation, like we're comparing phones to mysterious cardboard boxes or something. I'm just talking about the actual e-waste that people throw away every year, and wondering how it's changed in the phone era. I looked into a bit. Seems like no, the overall quantity (by weight) is increasing every year. There is a tiny decrease in big CRT screens, but it's offset by the steady increases in electronics of all sorts in developing countries. Phones and other small devices do make up a smaller portion of the overall weight, but overall it's still going up year after year. https://ewastemonitor.info/gem-2020/ https://ewastemonitor.info/gem-2020/ has a lot of good info.

massysett 3y ago

All this assumes that volume is the problem. Deliberately extreme example: cleaning up my yard results in a large volume of heavy waste - enough bags of waste to equal hundreds, maybe thousands, of discarded phones. But surely all the metals in the phones - maybe even from just ONE phone - will have much more environmental impact than a mixture of dead leaves, grass, and old mulch from my yard.

solardev 3y ago
Well, yeah, that's why I mentioned other electronics instead of biodegradables. Is there something especially bad in the raw materials of phones that older bigger electronics didn't have?
- topaz0 3y ago
  For one thing an old desktop computer is almost entirely air by volume... Most of the reason that phones are small is that they've managed to make them without having to have a lot of air inside.
  - solardev 3y ago
    Sure, but every PCB in it is still bigger than a phone. I mean, this isn't some weird hypothetical situation, like we're comparing phones to mysterious cardboard boxes or something. I'm just talking about the actual e-waste that people throw away every year, and wondering how it's changed in the phone era. I looked into a bit. Seems like no, the overall quantity (by weight) is increasing every year. There is a tiny decrease in big CRT screens, but it's offset by the steady increases in electronics of all sorts in developing countries. Phones and other small devices do make up a smaller portion of the overall weight, but overall it's still going up year after year. https://ewastemonitor.info/gem-2020/ https://ewastemonitor.info/gem-2020/ has a lot of good info.