What About Laptops?Recycling 1 million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by more than 3,600 US homes in a year.
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Did you know that 302 million laptops were purchased in 2020? Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, everything was transitioned online; work, school, and even casual meetings. Everyone needed something that was portable, effective, and very easy to use. The perfect candidate was the laptop! Now they have become a key part of life and work, and are used almost everywhere. This video was even made on a laptop. Though they may be the saviors of our sanity in these past years, they have a flaw; they are incredibly hard to recycle.
The problem is, modern laptops are made of many different materials that are incredibly hard to disassemble. These include different types of plastic, thin batteries, and LED light strips. You might be asking, why go through all this trouble to recycle them, can’t they just be thrown out? Firstly, laptops contain many precious metals like Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Because of this, it is very rewarding to recycle laptops, even though it is a huge challenge. Secondly, it helps to reduce the amount of laptops sent to landfills. Even if people might be aware of the benefits to recycling laptops, they decide not to for various reasons. One main reason for this is that data does not simply disappear from your laptop because you recycle it. This means that if you don’t wipe your device, there is a risk of identity theft. Identify theft is when someone steals another person’s personal information and uses it for their own benefit, for example, stealing money from their bank account. This is a very serious problem, and one that could lead to a lot of bad things for the victim. Because of this data problem, many people are reluctant to recycle their laptops, meaning that most laptops end up in a box in people’s basements or worse, in the landfill. We need to do something about this problem, or else the e-waste will get worse and worse. |
The Problems with Laptops During COVID-19
Produced by Amelia Halverson
