250 Eiffel Towers' worth of waste: The AI boom's toxic hardware problem
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ZDNET's key takeaways
- E-waste is an environmental hazard.
- The AI data center boom could amplify the problem.
- Waste pickers want a say in the solution.
Solomon Njoroge started picking waste at the Dandora dumpsite when he was a child. He's seen other waste pickers, who work long hours in the 40-acre landfill outside Nairobi, Kenya, suffer asthma, miscarriages, cancer, and respiratory diseases.
A dumpsite like Dandora isn't one person's fault, but rather a literal pileup of choices made by governments, companies, and individuals, going back decades, about how to dispose of the junk and refuse no one wants -- and where to put it.
While the Earth has been drowning in garbage for years, the modern era has introduced a new toxic ingredient: electronic waste, or e-waste.
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