Tackle e-waste with same urgency as plastics, UN urged

The UN has been urged to address the e-waste crisis with the same urgency as plastic pollution.

Yesterday, nearly 200 countries agreed to start negotiations on an international agreement to take action on the "plastic crisis".

Steve Haskew, head of sustainability at remanufactured laptop outfit Circular Computing, hailed the UN Plastic Treaty as a "momentous step" but urged the UN to address e-waste with "the same level of urgency".

E-waste is the world's fastest-growing waste stream, Haskew stressed.

"The mountain of e-waste is rapidly growing, last year's 57.4 million tonnes weighed in heavier than the Great Wall of China, so a similar treaty must be tabled to prevent us from creating an ecological disaster," he said.

"Valuable materials are being carelessly dumped globally - less than 20 per cent of e-waste is being officially documented and recycled. And as the world rapidly runs out of natural resources, addressing the e-waste problem should be the next great challenge of our time. We now have the technology and processes that allow us to take old tech and remanufacture it to ‘as good as new'. With the popularity of circular economic models growing in industries such as fashion, this mission to eradicate plastic waste should be the model the tech industry follows.

"The full lifecycle of technology needs to be evaluated as the Plastic Treaty outlines. Without this, we will continue on the unsustainable model of ‘take, make, replace' which is plaguing the tech industry. The world needs technology, but it doesn't need to cost the earth. We call on the UN to urgently consider creating a similar e-waste treaty to slow down the world's fastest growing waste steam."