5 billion phones waste: Roughly 5.3 billion mobile phones possessed worldwide will become waste in 2022: Report |

At a time when Apple, Google and Samsung, among other smartphone makers are working towards achieving a carbon-neutral footprint, a report has claimed that about a third of the 16 billion (1,600 crore) mobile phones possessed worldwide will become waste in 2022 and only a small fraction of these handsets will be properly disposed of.
5.3 billion mobile phones will become waste in 2022
As per a report by WEEE Forum, which works in implementation of effective electronic waste management policy, roughly 5.3 billion (530 crore) mobile/ smartphones will be defunct by the end of this year. If all these disused phones (with an average thickness of 9mm) are stacked flat atop one another, the height will be roughly 50,000 km.
This is 120 times higher than the distance between Earth and the International Space Station (ISS). The space station orbits Earth at an average altitude 420 km above the surface. Additionally, this distance is said to be one-eighth of the total distance between Earth and the Moon. The total distance between Earth and the Moon is 3,84,400 km.
Recycle rare materials
Smartphones are equipped with gold, copper, silver, palladium and other recyclable components. Experts conducted a survey and found that these components will either be stored in people’s houses or will be discarded in landfills or incineration.
“People tend not to realise that all these seemingly insignificant items have a lot of value, and together at a global level represent massive volumes,” Pascal Leroy, Director General of the WEEE Forum, the organisation behind International E-Waste Day, said.

The surveys were conducted from June to September, 2022 by the members of the WEEE Forum and the results were consolidated by the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme.
Magdalena Charytanowicz of the WEEE Forum in charge of International E-Waste Day says that, in 2022 alone, small eElectrical and electronic equipment (EEE) items such as cell phones, electric toothbrushes, toasters and cameras produced worldwide will weight an estimated total of 24.5 million tonnes – four times the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza. “And these small items make up a significant proportion of the 8% of all e-waste thrown into trash bins and eventually landfilled or incinerated,” Charytanowicz notes.
Apple, Google and Samsung’s take e-waste management
One of the steps taken by Apple to reduce its carbon footprint includes recycling of gold, cobalt, aluminium, and rare earth elements, among other materials that are now part of Apple products. The upcoming iOS 16.1 update will include a Clean Energy Charging feature that will only juice up the iPhones when the power grid is using sustainable sources of energy.
Google also claimed that the recently-launched Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro use 100% recycled aluminium for the matte enclosure.
Last month, Samsung also announced that all operations in the Device eXperience (DX) Division will be carbon neutral by 2030. The DX Division encompasses the company’s consumer electronics businesses.