A rising tide of e-waste , made worse by AI, threatens our health, the environment and the economy

Director of the Business Advice Centre for Post Graduate Students at UEL, Ambassador of the Centre for Innovation, Management and Enterprise, University of East London

Kirk Chang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Our growing reliance on technology at home and in the workplace has raised the profile of e-waste. This consists of discarded electrical devices including laptops, smartphones, televisions, computer servers, washing machines, medical equipment, games consoles and much more.

The amount of e-waste produced this decade could reach as much as 5 million metric tonnes, according to recent research published in Nature. This is around 1,000 times more e-waste than was produced in 2023.

According to the study, the boom in artificial intelligence will significantly contribute to this e-waste problem, because AI requires lots of computing power and storage. It will, among other things, lead to more turnover of computer servers used in the data centres that support the extra computational needs of AI systems.

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