Report warns AI waste will contain hazardous materials with no management plan
1 Sep 16 7:00 AM · 11d ago · 3 articles · 4 posts · 1 comment · 3 sources · development 1 of 1
The report states that e-waste from AI infrastructure will contain toxins like lead, mercury, cadmium, and forever chemicals, plus valuable metals challenging to reclaim. It emphasizes there is currently no plan to handle this waste, which typically gets dumped in landfills or overseas rather than properly recycled.
“We're doing a terrible job of handling e-waste in the US. Some of it gets dumped overseas. Most of it just gets dumped in landfills, which is a problem because it can leach all kinds of nasty things into the water, into the soil.”
Vince BeiserBasel Action Network (BAN) Environmental non-profitJim Puckett Co-founder, Basel Action NetworkVince Beiser Author, Power Metal
The whole story articlespostscomments the bright band is this development · numbered dots are the others · click one to jump
Reported in the same hours no headline names this development itself — these 3 claims were published in its stretch
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first by Mastodon, 11d ago · also Guardian Environment, Guardian
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first by Mastodon, 8d ago · also The Register
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first by Mastodon, 11d ago · also The Verge
What people said 7 voices · verbatim
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"AI infrastructure will generate between 395 million and 617 million tonnes of e-waste from 2025 to 2050. The report says that would fill between 15 million and 23 million shipping containers. Placing 20 million of them end to end would create a line about 244,000 km long, or roughly six times Earth's circumference." https://www…
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Check out level 1 techs on YouTube or they have a forum. Wendall does a good job of explaining how you can make use of data center tech in the homelab.
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Umm, I'm always afraid of falling into anti-AI/neoluddite rage-baiting zealotry. In this case, I think we should really have some more direct comparisons with other industries and even with other times, in the dotcom era, when kilometers of fiber were deployed around the western countries. This conversation should be really WAY more nuanced. "The…
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AI E-Waste May Be 40 To 60 Times What Has Been Estimated By 2050 it sees 31–46 million tonnes a year from data centers and 395–617 million tonnes in total. Extra “contagion” scrap outside centers could add 16.2–30.7 million tonnes a year. Combined global e-waste: 196–211 million tonnes. PFAS and faster rip-and-replace cycles are flagged next…
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"The ongoing campaign to build thousands of massive datacenters for AI will create a 'tsunami' of discarded electronics, putting the world on a course to triple its annual generation of toxic e-waste in the next 25 years, a new report projects." https://www. theguardian.com/world/2026/sep /16/datacenters-pollution-electronics # GenAI # AI
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AI- # datacenter forventes at generere mellem 395-617 millioner tons elektronisk affald i 2050, nok containers til at cirkulere kloden 🌍 - 6 gange - hvis de er linet op https://www. theverge.com/ai-artificial-int elligence/996470/ai-data-center-e-waste-ban
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Yet another environmental impact from # AI -the waste hardware: https://www. theregister.com/off-prem/2026/ 09/19/ai-boom-could-leave-an-e-waste-trail-that-wraps-6-times-around-earth/5297451 # ArtificialIntelligence
All 1 developments of Basel Action Network warns AI datacenter boom will triple… →
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