The Global E-waste Statistics Partnership, of which the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is a founding member, recently launched globalewaste.org, an open source portal that visualizes electronic waste (e-waste) data and statistics globally, by region and by country, for policymakers, industry, academia and the public.
Discarded equipment, such as phones, laptops, refrigerators, sensors and TVs are referred to as e-waste. E-waste contains substances that pose considerable environmental and health risks, especially if treated inadequately. On the other hand, e-waste presents an opportunity worth more than $62.5 billion per year if treated through appropriate recycling chains and methods, with the potential of creating millions of decent new jobs worldwide.
