Published 2026-05-21 · data 2024 · tonnes e-waste generated (2022)
Most e-waste is not recycled
Phones and laptops pile up. Formal recycling captures a fraction — the rest is stored, dumped, or burned.
Most of the world's e-waste is never formally recycled. Of the 62 million tonnes generated in 2022, just 13.8% was documented as recycled — the other 86.2% was landfilled, hoarded, or handled informally: stored, dumped, or burned. As phones and laptops pile up, the UN Global E-waste Monitor 2024 finds formal recycling capturing only a fraction of the total.
1 cell = 62 thousand tonnes e-waste generated (2022) (0.1% of annual e-waste) · 1,000 cells
Context
All figures come from the UN Global E-waste Monitor 2024, which estimates that 62 million tonnes of e-waste were generated worldwide in 2022. The monitor's headline collection-and-recycling rate for that year is about 22% — a measure that counts collection as well as recycling.
This grid's bands split that annual total into documented recycling (13.8%) and landfill, hoarded, or informal handling (86.2%). That larger share is the stored, dumped, or burned remainder — the fraction formal recycling doesn't capture.
Hoarded devices fall inside that 86.2%: a phone or laptop kept in a drawer counts as e-waste that is generated but never documented as recycled. Only the 13.8% band represents material with a documented path through formal recycling.
UN Global E-waste Monitor 2024: ~22% collection/recycling rate.
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Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-05-21-ewaste-mountain