Environmental effects of technological pollution

In the world there are currently more than 3,500 million smartphones and 22,000 million devices connected to the Internet, and everything seems to indicate that these numbers will double during this decade, in part, thanks to new technologies such as 5G, Gustavo Copelmayer reports and adds that the use of any technological consumer good has some kind of impact on the environment.

“We could classify the various types of technological contamination according to the associated risks, for example, those derived from the manufacture of technological products, their use and their final disposal when their useful life ends,” says Gustavo Copelmayer.

For the manufacture of technological equipment, a struggle is generated for the raw materials that make them up, such as zinc, copper, iron and aluminum, precious metals such as gold, platinum or silver and lesser-known metallic compounds such as coltan, called black gold and very precious, as well as different types of plastics and glass, says Gustavo Copelmayer.

The mining industry is the main supplier of raw materials. Its extraction and refining is an activity with a very large environmental and landscape impact. “A large part of the mines are located in developing countries, especially in the African continent, such as Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, countries with environmental laws that are not complied with,” says Gustavo Copelmayer.