7.1 Environmental Problems (Continued)
7.1.2 DISPOSAL BY-PRODUCTS
Technologies are quickly going obsolete. It has been estimated that 3% of microprocessors and memory chips, for example,go obsolete each month. What to do with the “e-waste”—nearly 400 million electronic products Americans discard per year?
• According to Wirefly.org, the average cell phone user replaces his cellphone every 18 months.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that over 112,000 computers are discarded every single day. That’s 41.1 million desktops and laptop computers per year. And that’s just in the United States (and does not include computer monitors).
• 20 million TVs are trashed in the United States every year.
• And we toss over 100 million cellphones in the trash every year.
• Only 13% of electronic waste is disposed of and recycled properly.