Quiz: How much do you know about e-waste?
Do you know what’s really inside your favorite electronic devices … and how we can avoid wasting critical minerals? Try our 8 question quiz.
From smartphones and laptops to disposable vapes, America produces roughly 47 pounds of electronic waste per person each year, with more than 3 million tons of American e-waste going unrecycled annually.
These electronics are often designed to be discarded, are made too difficult or expensive to make even basic repairs or forced to be replaced early due to software support. E-waste is driving a growing category of trash–at a time when the need for critical materials found in this waste is leading us to consider proposals as damaging as mining the bottom of the ocean to gather more.
Yet, the critical minerals in discarded electronics winds up in our trash. See if you can guess how much e-waste is being created and how much we could save.
Now for the facts on how we can make an impact on e-waste
Extending the lifetimes of electronics, clean energy technologies and other products throughout our economy can reduce demand for critical minerals at a time of rapidly growing demand. Extending the lifetime of a product by 50% can reduce material needs by as much as a third; doubling a product’s lifetime can reduce material needs by as much as 50%. And stopping the sale of throwaway electronics like disposable vapes keeps critical materials out the waste stream in the first place.
For more information about how more use out of consumer products can help alleviate pressure for destructive new mining, visit our report, We Don’t Need Deep-Sea Mining.
Quiz sources
Question 1: 1.167 billion smartphones (rounded to 1.2 billion) sold annually: Jon Porter, “Apple tops Samsung for first time in global smartphone shipments,” The Verge, January 16, 2024, accessed at https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/16/24039830/apple-bestselling-phone-manufacturer-2023-samsung-idc-canalys-research; less than three years: Federica Laricchia, Statista, Average Lifespan (Replacement Cycle) of Smartphones in the United States from 2013 to 2027, accessed at https://www.statista.com/statistics/619788/average-smartphone-life/, August 26, 2024.
Question 2: Neodymium in smartphones: Based on 0.22 g Nd/smartphone multiplied by 1.167 billion smartphones sold annually. Total is 257 metric tons, rounded down to 250 metric tons. 0.22 g Nd/smartphone assumes Nd = 0.2% of smartphone by weight and smartphone weight is 110.74 g, from B. Bookhagen, et al., “Metallic resources in smartphones,” Resources Policy 68: 101750, October 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2020.101750). 5% of all neodymium used in electric vehicles worldwide based on 5.16 kilotons used in electric vehicles in 2023 from International Energy Agency, Critical Minerals Data Explorer, accessed at https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/critical-minerals-data-explorer, August 26, 2024.
Question 3: 38.4 kg/turbine based on 12 kg/MW for onshore wind turbines from Annika Eberle et al., National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Materials Used in U.S. Wind Energy Technologies: Quantities and Availability for Two Scenarios, August 2023, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240327163343/https://www.nrel.gov/docs/ fy23osti/81483.pdf, p. 38; multiplied by average size of new wind turbine of 3.2 MW (in 2022), from Liz Hartman, U.S. Department of Energy, Wind Turbines: the Bigger, the Better, August 21, 2024, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240826172916/https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/wind-turbines-bigger-better. 257 tons (from Question 2 above)/38.4 kg = 6,692 turbines. Increase of 50% in lifespan = reduction of up to 33% in material use. 6,692/3 = 2,230 turbines, rounded to 2,200. Number of average homes from U.S. Geological Survey, “How many homes can an average wind turbine power,” Frequently Asked Questions: Energy, undated, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240826173511/https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-homes-can-average-wind-turbine-power.
Question 4: Oranges: Jillian Kubala and Atli Arnarson, “Oranges: Nutrients, benefits, juice and more,” Healthline, updated April 20, 2023, accessed at https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/oranges; volleyball: topend sports, Sports Ball Weight Comparison, undated, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240826173950/https://www.topendsports.com/resources/equipment/ball-weight.htm, August 26, 2024; hamster: Hamster Clubhouse, “Healthy weight range for hamsters?”, January 14, 2023, accessed at https://hamsterclubhouse.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=866.
Question 5: 18%: Douglas S. Thomas, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Cost-Effective Environmental Sustainability: A Focus on a Circular Economy, October 2022, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240327182944/https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ams/NIST.AMS.100-48-upd1.pdf, p. 16.
Question 6: Copper saved from We Don’t Need Deep-Sea Mining, page 36; copper intensity of residential PV systems = 8,303 lbs./MW from Roberto Rodriguez Labastida and Dexter Gauntlett, Navigant Research, North America Solar PV Copper Content Analysis, 3rd quarter 2018, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240826175107/https://www.copper.org/publications/pub_list/pdf/a6197-na-solar-pv-analysis.pdf; median residential PV system = 7.2 kW from Galen Barbose, et al., Tracking the Sun: 2023 Edition, September 2023, https://web.archive.org/web/20240826175705/https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/5_tracking_the_sun_2023_report.pdf, p. 12; copper per residential system = (3.77 metric tons/system × 7.2 kWh)/1000= 0.027 metric tons/system. 20,590/0.027 = 762,592 systems, rounded to 760,000; one-fifth of total number: 3.9 million residential solar energy systems from David Feldman, et al., National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Spring 2023 Solar Industry Update, April 27, 2023, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231114215848/https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/86215.pdf.
Question 7: 52% and 25% from Fatma Romeh, et al., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “E-cigarette unit sales by product and flavor type, and top-selling brands, United States 2020-2022,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 72(25): 672-677, June 23, 2023, accessed at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7225a1.htm?s_cid=mm7225a1_w.
Question 8: 11,000: Oliver Barnes and Alexandra Heal, “The environmental cost of single-use vapes,” Financial Times, March 7, 2023.
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