The Global Challenge of Electronics: Managing the Present and Preparing the Future

Abstract Home offices, virtual meeting rooms and online training that were admittedly becoming commonplace, are now essentially inescapable. The greater reliance on electronics, and the data and energy storage, however, comes at a cost. Planned obsolescence and the lack of environmentally benign end‐of‐life scenarios, such as reuse and recycle, but also degrade or vanish for organic electronics, are at the root cause of the dramatic increase in global e‐waste. Their impact is unequally distributed with low‐ and medium‐income countries taking the brunt of the harmful environmental and health effects, on their populations. This Perspective article suggests meaningful paths to mitigate the electronics waste crisis, beyond the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle), that include sustainable and eco‐designed electronics while recognizing the limitations of certain tools at the disposal. Massive paradigm shifts along with profound systemic and cultural changes need to occur for the digital revolution's benefits to outweigh its drawbacks, most important of which are its present unsustainable growth. These shifts need to occur on intersectoral, intersectional, and intergenerational dimensions to alleviate the heavily asymmetrical environmental impact (Global‐North vs Global‐South) e‐waste have. Coordinating efforts at the international level will be crucial to build capacity and make an impact.