December 18
New report numbers out of the United Nations’ StEP Initiative proclaim e-waste as one of the world’s fastest growing streams of waste production. StEP(Solving The world’s E-waste Problem) was set up to tackle the growing and often underestimated problem of electronic waste. According to figures, last year 50m tons of e-waste was generated. This is following the predicted trend that in the next four years e-waste will grow 33%.
The site livescience.com has produced a nice infographic with the latest data from StEP showing E-waste Generation by Country.
Being heavily involved with electronics equipment like hard drives, this issue has always been on CBL Data Recovery’s radar. While we don’t actually dispose of many hard drives in our labs due to maintaining a very large parts inventory, our interest in this is both environmental as well as out of concern for a related data security issue. The security risks of old computers and hard drives that end up in global e-waste dumping grounds continues to rise. Unwiped data devices are common and an easy target for organized crime and identity thieves. Check out CBL Data Shredder for information about wiping hard drives you might be disposing of.
Some interesting related stories/sources:
- Christmas Lights Make Slippers In Global ‘Junkyard’ Economy a broader look at the hidden world of globalized recycling, and its impact on the environment and the global economy
- Toxic ‘e-waste’ dumped in poor nations, says United Nations
- StEP: World E-Waste Map Reveals National Volumes, International Flows
Category: data loss prevention
Tags: data security, data shredder, environment, recycled computers, theft, wiping
