How to Use e-waste in a Sentence
e-waste
noun-
Electronics in the waste stream:Your old cellphone and printer are e-waste.
— The Arizona Republic, 24 May 2023 -
Refunds or not, there will still be many useless hunks of e-waste left behind.
— Antonio G. Di Benedetto, The Verge, 30 May 2024 -
That cuts down e-waste and potentially even the need to mine for as much raw material.
— Justine Calma, The Verge, 11 Oct. 2023 -
Less than 1% of rare earth metals found in e-waste are currently recycled.
— Mack Degeurin, Popular Science, 1 May 2024 -
Not only is e-waste a huge problem but tossing batteries can cause fires.
— Wes Davis, The Verge, 8 June 2024 -
The Pin becomes e-waste, and Humane doesn’t have the opportunity to reclaim the revenue by selling it again.
— Kylie Robison, The Verge, 7 Aug. 2024 -
There goes another $19 straight to the world’s most valuable company, and another scrap for the e-waste junkyard.
— Brian Barrett, The Atlantic, 12 Sep. 2023 -
Businesses with a large quantity of e-waste can schedule a free pickup.
— Linda McIntosh, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 May 2024 -
Gold is coaxed from e-waste with a protein amyloid nanofibril (AF) aerogel derived from whey, a by-product from cheese-making.
— IEEE Spectrum, 14 Mar. 2024 -
Retiring the Lightning cable could even generate, in the short term, a surge of e-waste as iPhone users toss their useless Lightning cables in a drawer.
— Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN, 13 Sep. 2023 -
If all data can't be removed from a device, it gets recycled through a licensed recycler to keep e-waste out of landfills.
— Marina Johnson, The Courier-Journal, 6 Aug. 2024 -
Best Buy also has an e-waste program that allows people to either recycle or trade in their old tech products.
— Annie Midori Atherton, Washington Post, 6 June 2023 -
Environment:Your old cellphone and printer are e-waste.
— The Arizona Republic, 21 Apr. 2023 -
Residents and businesses can drop off e-waste free of charge for recycling from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
— Linda McIntosh, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 May 2024 -
Critics say this hurts the secondhand market, which benefits consumers and helps the smart, pricey devices avoid becoming e-waste.
— Scharon Harding, Ars Technica, 5 Sep. 2024 -
In all, people across the world throw out roughly 9 billion kilograms (19.8 billion pounds) of e-waste commonly not recognized as such by consumers.
— Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 12 Oct. 2023 -
Digiconomist has estimated that a single bitcoin transaction may generate more e-waste than two iPhones (but less than an iPad).
— Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes, 4 May 2023 -
Europe, for example, has fairly high formal e-waste recycling rates, at about 43 percent.
— Matt Simon, WIRED, 20 Mar. 2024 -
Some of what most consumers consider to be e-waste—like electronics such as computers, smartphones, TVs, and speaker systems—are usual suspects.
— Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 12 Oct. 2023 -
That is intercepting and recycling the most harmful materials on the planet — plastic waste, e-waste, and carbon dioxide.
— Alessia Glaviano, Vogue, 10 Apr. 2024 -
As well as being an environmental problem, e-waste is also a climate problem.
— Rachel Ramirez, CNN, 20 Mar. 2024 -
Campus donation sites are set up for clothing, textiles and e-waste, according to a university statement.
— Sonja Stott, Los Angeles Times, 1 Sep. 2023 -
Ditching the batteries in small devices could also reduce lithium demand and problematic e-waste.
— Simon Hill, WIRED, 14 Oct. 2023 -
Climate experts also suggest the environmental effects of e-waste are being downplayed, and question the quality of the credits themselves.
— Bydavid Meyer, Fortune, 24 Oct. 2023 -
For cheap-to-manufacture products like smartphones, researchers say corporations will simply drop prices, leading consumers to purchase new models and turn their old ones into e-waste.
— Patrik Jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Mar. 2023 -
The metals present in e-waste aren’t necessarily useful for every climate tech application even when they are recycled.
— Maddie Stone / Grist, Quartz, 23 Apr. 2024 -
Data centers contribute to the 50 million tons of electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) produced worldwide every year, but only 20% is recycled.
— Sviat Dulianinov, Forbes, 29 Mar. 2024 -
Another is to avoid dumping e-waste on countries without the means to recycle or repurpose, and instead keep the valuable minerals inside batteries local.
— WIRED, 17 Nov. 2023 -
As governments, tech makers, and consumer advocates seek to define legislation that impacts how consumers use and buy electronics and create e-waste, debate around the right to repair and charging standards abound.
— Scharon Harding, Ars Technica, 31 Mar. 2023 -
However, open source advocates and those concerned about e-waste argue that opening the device would still be a better solution than bricking devices after less than three years of general availability.
— Scharon Harding, Ars Technica, 30 May 2024
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'e-waste.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Last Updated: