What is Fast Tech?
Fast Tech is a term used to describe small electrical items that are cheap, trendy, and often disposable. These include cables, lights, mini fans, disposable vapes, cordless headphones, USB sticks, and many more. These items are the electrical version of fast fashion, which is known for its negative environmental and social impacts.
Fast Tech items are usually designed to be used for a short period of time, or until a newer version comes out. They are often made of low-quality materials that break easily or become obsolete quickly. They also contain valuable raw materials, such as copper wires and lithium batteries, which can be recovered through the recycling process.
However, many consumers do not realise that these items are classified as e-waste, and they end up throwing them away in the bin. This means that these resources are lost forever, and they contribute to the growing problem of e-waste in the world.
How big is the problem?
According to a new research from Material Focus, a not-for-profit group that promotes e-waste recycling, nearly half a billion Fast Tech items were thrown away in the UK last year. This amounts to 471 million items, including:
- 260 million disposable vapes
- 30 million LED, solar and decorative lights
- 26 million cables
- 10 million USB sticks
- 7 million cordless headphones
- 5 million mini fans
The average cost of £4 for these items encourages consumers to see them as disposable, though they aren’t always designed to be. The research also found that the average home has 30 unused electrical items gathering dust, such as cables, mobile phones, and remote controls. These items could all be put to better use by recycling them or donating them to charity.
The problem is not limited to the UK. Every year, consumers around the world throw away 9 billion tons of cables, toys, vapes, novelty clothes and similar devices which they often don’t recognise as e-waste. This makes Fast Tech the fastest-growing e-waste type in the world.
Why does it matter?
E-waste is one of the most serious environmental challenges of our time. It poses a threat to human health and the environment, as it contains toxic substances that can leach into the soil and water, or release harmful emissions into the air. It also contributes to climate change, as it represents a waste of energy and resources that could be reused or recycled.
Recycling e-waste can help reduce its negative impacts and create positive benefits for society. Recycling e-waste can:
- Save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by avoiding the extraction and processing of new raw materials
- Conserve natural resources and reduce the demand for scarce metals and minerals
- Create jobs and income opportunities for people involved in the recycling sector
- Support innovation and development of new products and services that use recycled materials
What can we do?
The solution to the problem of Fast Tech is not to stop buying or using these items altogether, but to dispose of them responsibly when they are no longer needed or wanted. There are many ways to do this, such as:
- Recycling them at a local collection point or through a retailer’s take-back scheme
- Donating them to a charity or a community organisation that can reuse them or give them to someone in need
- Repairing them or upgrading them if possible, or finding alternative uses for them
- Buying less or choosing more durable and sustainable products that last longer and have less environmental impact
Scott Butler, Executive Director of Material Focus, said: “People may not realise that they contain valuable materials and will just pop them in the bin, meaning we lose everything inside them instead of recycling them into something new. We want to get the message across that anything with a plug, battery or cable can be recycled and there’s somewhere near you to do it.”
Nadiya Catel-Arutyunova, Sustainability Advisor at the British Retail Consortium, said: “All retailers selling electricals, whether it is online or in store, are required to help customers dispose of their old electrical products – regardless of where they were originally purchased.”
Material Focus’s research is based on a survey of 2000 nationally representative adults by Opinium Research. The vapes figure comes from a survey of 5,156 adults conducted by Yougov.
