Building trust in the digital era: achieving Scotland's aspirations as an ethical digital nation: case study supplement

A ‘Green’ Digital Scotland

Case Study: Digital Waste – Gerry McGovern & Dr. Laura Fogg-Rodgers

“Scotland played a significant part in the Industrial Revolution and was once the mining and heavy industry capital of the world,” the Visit Scotland website proudly states. “Millions were employed in mining, shipbuilding, steel and cotton mills.”

The UK was the first industrial society. Which also means it was the first to emit significant quantities of CO₂. In 1751, the UK was estimated to have emitted 10 million tons of CO₂.

Fortnite and World of Warcraft are very popular computer games. Based on my analysis, the playing of these games have been responsible for 50 million tons of CO₂, both in electrical energy consumed and in the CO₂ caused making the hi-spec computers and screens used to play such games.

Digital is physical. The Cloud is on the ground. Yet we treat digital like it was some invisible, benevolent force. Most of the waste and pollution that digital causes occurs during the manufacture of the device. Digital devices, for all their shininess and ultracool modernity, have a disturbing, dirty and deeply unethical backstory.

A smartphone can be made up of hundreds of materials and many of these materials are mined in the Global South. Child and slave labour is not uncommon in this mining process.

Many digital devices are manufactured and assembled in the Global South in working conditions not much better than sweatshops.

After very short lives, these “old” electronics are often packed into containers and then shipped back to the Global South where they pollute the environment and sicken the people.

The Global North can smugly claim it’s achieving zero this and zero that, when in fact what it has ‘cleverly’ done is outsource its pollution and extractive activities to the Global South. The blind eye and hidden hand has never been so blind and hidden. Less than 20% of e-waste gets recycled and much of the recycling is done “informally”.

According to a 2021 study by the WHO, over 18 million children and 13 million women are involved in the ‘informal’ e-waste sector. Teenagers inhale toxic fumes as they burn cables in order to expose the precious wires, pregnant women sort through digital trash, and children as young as five are used (because of their small, dexterous fingers) to pick apart digital products that were deliberately designed so that they could not be easily disassembled.

“Waste colonialism” is what the International Institute for Sustainable Development terms it, “in which toxic wastes from developed countries are relocated to developing countries on “ships of doom”, some of which roam the ocean looking for a port to offload their toxic cargo.”

Unfortunately, for the Global North, what goes around does eventually come around. We only have one earth and pollution and damage that the technology-driven mass consumer society has wrecked on the earth cannot be localized forever. The pollution seeps out beyond national boundaries affecting the atmosphere, among other things.

According to the UN, the world produced over 50 million tonnes of electronic waste (e-waste) 2019. That is the equivalent of dumping 1,000 laptops every second. This figure is expected to double in the next thirty years.

The UK is the second worst in the world at creating e-waste, producing and average of 23.9 kg per person in 2019, according to the UK Green Alliance. “The UK is the worst offender in Europe for illegally exporting toxic electronic waste to developing countries,” according to a report in The Guardian in 2019.

The global average for annual e-waste production is 7.3 kg per person. What this means is that the majority of the world’s population is creating a couple of kg of e-waste a year at maximum, while the rich North is spewing out the waste like there was no tomorrow.

With proper commitment to rules and standards, e-waste can be recycled in a way that it delivers a significant source of essential materials. It must be treated as a resource, not as waste. There are significant concentrations of copper, gold, lithium, etc., in e-waste and if digital products are correctly designed, the extraction of these materials can be highly efficient.

Recommendations

What can Scotland do about the current hugely unethical and climate-damaging situation?

• Keep Scottish e-waste in Scotland.
• Ensure that e-waste is properly and professionally recycled.
• Encourage the repair of digital devices and facilitate such activities.
• Encourage holding onto digital devices as long as possible.
• Raise awareness among citizens and businesses because so many people are totally unaware of the negative impacts of digital
• Encourage the purchase of digital products that have the longest warranties, and whose design allows for repair and recycling. In government procurement, mandate the purchase of such products
• Encourage everyone that once they are finished with a digital device they immediately:
  • Give it to someone locally who can still get use of it.
  • If it is beyond use, ensure that it gets to a professional recycler.