We’re all familiar with the “energy waste” and “carbon emissions” narratives around Bitcoin mining. “It wastes energy!” “It’s a carbon emitter!” Obviously, Bitcoin is a unique and terrible attack on the environment at a scale previously unheard of in human history.
But now the “Bitcoin is anti-environmental” narrative is now starting to shift towards “e-waste[1].” This, in the wider context of environmental narratives, is nothing new, and in the context of the consumer cycles related to electronic devices is actually a very legitimate pollution problem. Over 40 million tons of electronic waste is generated every year. But this is also a problem that predates Bitcoin, and just like energy consumption narratives, Bitcoin contributes to only a tiny fraction of the problem.
There are roughly 40 million tons of e-waste disposed of each year[2], Bitcoin contributes 30,000 tons of that, according to estimates cited by the BBC[3]. That is 0.075% of all e-waste produced yearly.
Hopefully you can see that, just like the narratives encircling Bitcoin about its energy use, the contribution of Bitcoin to this larger societal problem is an insignificant rounding error[4]. This, however, does not change the fact that e-waste is a real environmental problem[5].
Seventy percent of toxic waste produced by society is in the form of electronic devices. Think of how often you replace your smartphone, your television, your desktop monitors. Most people replace a smartphone every two years. Every Black Friday, people rush out to retail stores to scoop up that year's newest television model on fire sale. This is a consumerism problem, not a Bitcoin problem.
The only real solution to this is for consumers to alter their consumption behavior. That is a wider
