I am sure that you, as many others, have old tech lying around the house, whether it be your Nokia 6310, or just an old television which was in the kitchen.
Statistics show that it is likely 40 million unused electronic devices are ‘stockpiled’ around the country, many of which will never be used again.
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), recently conducted a survey, asking more than 2,000 people about their old tech.
45% of them said they had as many as five unused devices.
Mobiles and laptops came out on top, but that isn’t to say they were the only things which have been forgotten about. 66% of households stated the reason they were hanging on to the tech was to use as ‘spares’, just in case of breakage or loosing something after one too many drinks on a night out.
But, this could be a bad thing for future tech as stockpiling in this way means we are running out of the materials required.
Indium, gallium and silver
All of which are used in consumer electronics. but holding on to tech like this means supplies could be depleted in the next hundred years.
‘We are approaching the point of no return for some of these materials,’ the RSC’s chief executive Robert Parker said in a statement. ‘Over our lifetime, one person in the UK will produce around three tonnes of electronic waste. However, there are indications that number could increase as the number of smart, wireless or connected devices in the home increase.’
