Datacenter E-Waste

A new report from the non-profit Basel Action Network (BAN) warns that the ongoing push to build thousands of massive datacenters for artificial intelligence will create a “tsunami” of discarded electronics, putting the world on course to triple its annual generation of toxic e-waste over the next 25 years.

The electronic waste that AI generates over that period could fill enough shipping containers to encircle the globe six times, the report projects. It adds that there is currently no plan to manage that waste, which typically contains toxins such as lead, mercury, cadmium and “forever chemicals.”

The same discarded electronics also hold valuable metals that remain challenging to reclaim, underscoring why closing the loop on e-waste and recovering those materials will matter as datacenter demand keeps scaling.

Learn More:

• E-Waste Blockchain
• Resource Recovery Projects