Low-cost and quickly discarded products are playing a key role in worldâs fastest-growing waste problem â electronics
It is cheap, often poorly made, and usually ends up in the bin or buried among the other knick-knacks, takeaway menus and birthday candles in the kitchen drawer.
Known as âfast-techâ, these low-cost electronics are increasingly common â from mini-fans and electric toothbrushes, to portable chargers and LED toilet seats, often bought for just a few pounds online.
But behind the bargain price is a growing problem: many of these items are difficult to repair, not recycled and quickly discarded. Electronic waste is one of the worldâs fastest-growing waste streams, and experts say fast tech is playing an increasingly significant role.
In the UK, it is estimated that more than 1.14bn of these small electronic gadgets (including vapes) are bought a year and about half (589m) are disposed of in that same time, which is equivalent to 19 a second, according to Material Focus, the organisation behind the Recycle Your Electricals campaign.
âWeâve had fast food, weâve had fast fashion, and weâre now in the age of fast tech,â says Scott Butler, the executive director of Material Focus. âWeâre not moralist against technology, but what we are concerned about is the volume of low-quality, cheap, flimsy products that are flooding the market, which end up binned or unused.â
Fast tech is seen as disposable by more than a third of Britons, according to a survey, and this is, in part, due to the low price point, Butler says. â[It] might be cheap but itâs not disposable. In fact, anything with a plug, battery or cable should never be binned. Theyâre full of useful metals and can be used again,â he adds.
Butler highlights âfadâ fast tech as a key issue â cheap items that are bought at certain times of year or for particular occasions, such as mini-fans as the UK warms up or light-up Christmas jumpers. About 7.1m mini-fans were bought in the UK last year and more than 3.5m have already been discarded or forgotten in drawers in that same period.
âWe just had a heatwave. Iâm sure the sale of mini-fans has boomed during that period. Thereâs nothing wrong in trying to keep yourself cool, but we urge people, if you do need those things, try to buy the best version of it that you can so that it has a much better chance of lasting more than a summer,â he said.
Laura Young, an environmental scientist and campaigner, says fast tech represents a new kind of environmental threat â not just because of the potentially toxic chemicals many contain, but because of the sheer volume and disposability.
âWe have never had throwaway technology like this before,â she says. âAnd I think people maybe just genuinely donât realise that there are electronic components inside of a lot of these tiny devices.
And while it is unlikely the amount of fast tech on the market will decline any time soon, Butler says it is crucial to change how we think about it. âUltimately these things are sold because people buy them. If people didnât buy them, then obviously they wouldnât be on the market.
âJust be a bit more mindful about what you buy, how you use it, and what you do with it when you no longer need it. Never bin it when it no longer works,â he says, urging people to instead collect their electricals and find their nearest recycling point using the locator online.
There is also a push for better repair, reuse and borrowing options. Young points to community initiatives such as repair cafes and tool libraries that allow people to borrow items, often for a fraction of the cost of buying it new.
âIâm signed up to a tool library. I donât buy DIY equipment any more.â Tackling fast tech requires âthinking differentlyâ, she says, and not thinking âI have to own everythingâ or making unnecessary impulse purchases.
