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Consumers can help bring down 'e-waste mountain': UN report

Consumers can help bring down 'e-waste mountain': UN report

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The number of discarded laptops, mobile phones, televisions and other electronic items worldwide weighs as much as 1.2 million heavy-duty trucks lined up from New York to Bangkok and back.

And while this e-waste, as it’s known, contains around $55 billion worth of gold, silver, copper and other valuable material, only about 20 per cent was recycled in 2016.

The findings come in a report launched on Wednesday by the Bonn-based Sustainable Cycles Programme at United Nations University.

Dianne Penn has been speaking to one of the authors, Rüdiger Kühr, who believes consumers have the power to bring down what he described as “the e-waste mountain.”

Duration: 5’41”

Audio
5'41"
Photo Credit
UNEP/Kai Loeffelbein