E-waste and where it comes from
■ A computer circuit board can contain gold, copper, cadmium, iron, tantalum, molybdenum, palladium, lead, cobalt, tin, nickel, cerium, antimony, platinum, zinc, lanthanum, silver and mercury.
■ A chip in a smartphone can contain 60 chemical elements.
■ China made 1.18bn mobile phones in 2012.
■ The US discarded 258.2m computers, monitors, TVs and mobile phones in 2010. Each American is responsible for an average 29.8kg of hi-tech waste; it’s 5.4kg in China and 21.82kg in the UK.
■ The total annual volume of e-waste is expected to grow by 33% to 65.4m tonnes by 2017.
■ The lowest levels of e-waste per person are generated in DR Congo (0.21kg) and Burkina Faso (0.81kg)
■ 10bn mobile-connected devices expected to be in use by 2017.
Sources: UNEP, StEP, MIT, Cisco