A $60 billion-a-year climate solution is sitting in our junk drawers
www.motherjones.com
In rich nations, just a fraction of e-waste is mined for critical metals. We’re going to have to up our game.

"Anwar’s job, scrounging for discarded electronics in [Nigerian] Ikeja Computer Village, one of the world’s biggest and most hectic marketplaces for used, repaired, and refurbished electronic products… "

  • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
    242·
    3 days ago

    Yeah, it’s super attractive until you realize the current conditions we can technologically handle that. It’s dangerous slave labor.

    Good luck selling that to the era of kids working a MacDonald’s.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      Haven’t had a chance to read the article, but my take from the summary is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

      In other words, proper e-waste management, and more of it. A lot just gets tossed in landfills or sent to third world countries (to get tossed in their landfills).

      Really the onus of this should be on the manufacturer. I don’t think any product should be brought to market without knowing cradle-to-grave where it came from and where it will go (and paying for proper disposal, as well).

  • intensely_human@lemm.eeEnglish
    201·
    2 days ago

    This is very true. I cleaned up an old Game Boy I hadn’t played in decades, and sold it on eBay for $60 billion.

  • fl42v@lemmy.mlEnglish
    12·
    2 days ago

    Idk, I’m more into re-using. Old pc? A home server! Old laptop? A home server! Old phone? You guessed it, a home server! Alternatively, I can give 'em to a friend/relative if they happen to need one. And FUBAR stuff goes into its own bin in case I need spare components.

    • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      I used to do that too, until mobile devices and the Raspberry Pi and similar started maturing. While I now have many more devices, they use a lot less material and a lot less energy, while also being much more capable than my tables full of museum pieces

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      There’s a point where I have more devices than I can responsibly use. Here’s what I currently use:

      • RetroPie setup - plugged in behind my TV, gets used every couple months - I have a few more ARM SOCs that just sit in a box somewhere
      • NAS - was my original PC (Phenom II from 2010), and I upgraded to my previous PC (Ryzen 1700)
      • laptop for kids to play games on - from 2018; my older ones died due to water or physical damage
      • my old phone - Moto G Power; I use it around the house while my new phone (Pixel 8) is charging or something

      And stuff I have lying around the house:

      • Phenom II x4 - first DIY PC, only exists for parts
      • GTX 960 - I put my old GTX 750 Ti into my NAS because the 1700 doesn’t have a built-in GPU (the Phenom II mobo has one though); it’s there in case one of our GPUs dies before we upgrade
      • older AMD PC - FX-6300 I think? We’ll probably give it to the kids as their first PC, assuming my SO and I don’t upgrade first

      I’ll probably get rid of the Phenom II stuff once we upgrade one of our PCs, because it’s just not worth using anymore due to how old it is and how much power it draws (my Ryzen 1700 is more efficient).

      But yeah, I reuse as much as I can.

      • fl42v@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Another idea for android phones is octo4a (octopi for android) if you’re into 3d printing. That’s what my nexus 6 with a dead display is doing. Also you can run docker on 'em if you can build the kernel, and it’s not too ancient (AFAIK, docker needs 3.something, so it’s like android 6 in general, maybe?), but I personally never got to it, unfortunately