Did you know that Australia generates about 500,000 tonnes of e-waste annually? Now, a Microsoft systems upgrade will be further adding to this – with some reports suggesting that in Australia alone, there are more than 6 million assets that will be needing to transfer from Windows 10 to Windows 11 before the deadline of October.
Greenbox CEO Ross Thompson spoke to the ABC’s Rhiana Whitson about Australia’s e-waste problem and how we can address it.
Note: This article was originally published on the ABC and can be read in full here.
Article excerpt:
As technology accelerates, so too does Australia’s electronic waste problem.
“With generative AI [artificial intelligence], there’s a lot of waste and new waste streams coming from data centres,” explains Ross Thompson, CEO of Greenbox.
“We live in a very consumer-driven environment at the moment, and manufacturers are typically looking to churn out the next model of the iPhone or model of laptop or PC or whatever that might be.”
Every year, Greenbox processes millions of discarded computers and other e-waste from large companies, government departments and agencies.
“The best form of e-waste recycling is actually reuse,” Mr Thompson says.
“We typically try and extract as much value out of the asset before it needs to be recycled.”
The company is just one of a growing number of businesses that divert e-waste from landfill.
“If we absolutely can’t refurbish the asset and resell it into our global networks that we have around the world, then we’ll recycle the asset. The rare earth metals and the materials … will then go back into the circular economy and be used in things like solar panels and other tech,” Mr Thompson says.
Australia’s e-waste almost triple global average
Australia generates about 500,000 tonnes of e-waste annually, according to the latest available data from the federal government’s national waste report.
That means each Australian produces about 20kg of e-waste a year, compared with the global average of 7kg.
In 2022, only about half of all e-waste was recycled and just 35 per cent of valuable materials it contains were recovered.
The amount of waste is projected to rise nearly 30 per cent by 2030 to 657,000 tonnes.
To read the full article, follow the link to the ABC story here.