I conducted a thorough search on the internet and could not find what the global digital waste burden was in 2025 or 2024—the data at best comes from 2021–2022, when large AI language models were only beginning their rapid rise. So if some sources said that in 2022 data centers produced 1.1 billion tons of CO₂—27% more than the aviation sector—and predicted that this would reach 2.5 billion tons by 2030, then we have probably taken an even faster course by now. Here is one article that looks directly at the seriousness of the issue, though it does not yet mention artificial intelligence.

Digital waste in your pocket

Reading this section will take you at most 60 seconds. The Final Straw Foundation points out that in 60 seconds, globally combined, more than 4.3 million YouTube videos are watched, 764,000 hours of Netflix are streamed, nearly 700,000 Instagram visits occur, 1,400 TikTok downloads happen, 4.1 million Google searches are made, 59 million WhatsApp messages are sent, and 190 million emails are delivered.

We can be fairly certain that all internet users produce digital waste; even more so those who carry a smart device in their pocket; and even more so daily social media users. We simply do not think about it—because it is invisible. We encounter digital waste directly when we need to find something among our photos, files, or data but cannot, or when our disk or cloud storage runs out and we must choose whether to buy more space or clean up what we already have.

In the latter case we truly notice what is taking up space: fifteen photos of a birthday cake get in the way, fifteen partial copies of a long-submitted thesis, article, or project application, or fifteen data files that turned out to be useless. All of these occupy space on our devices or are backed up to cloud servers, and together they create an invisible environmental burden. It has been estimated that “dark data”—data that is stored but actually unnecessary and which, according to different estimates, makes up 60–85% of all data—generates more than 5.8 million tons of CO₂ annually, roughly equal to the yearly emissions of 1.2 million cars. The accumulation of “dark data” could already be called digital permafrost, as it becomes buried ever deeper under new photos and other data that we do not need but that are automatically backed up to the cloud.

A large but invisible environmental burden also comes from using social media. For example, scrolling through X or Instagram during a bus ride means not only that your device will need charging again, but also that the platform’s servers and algorithms consume energy to calculate what to show you next. Between these two, energy is also required to transmit the internet itself. Globally, 46 billion GB of mobile data traffic is used every month; of this, 66.2% is consumed by video apps and 10% by social media. Streaming accounts for about 75–80% of all internet traffic; for example, watching a two-hour stream from a cloud service produces 112–228 g of CO₂. That is equivalent to charging a smartphone 23 times.

So it is worth considering what scrolling through fast content actually gives you—do you remember ten minutes later what you watched, did you truly need it in your life, or could you instead have called your mother, read a book, rested your eyes, or meditated?

More recently, the use of artificial intelligence has also been increasing internet consumption. A single ChatGPT query is roughly ten times more energy-intensive than a regular Google search. So you also do the environment a favor when you turn to AI only when you truly need it, not when you simply do not feel like thinking. Incidentally, you also do your own mind a favor by doing so.

A gold mine in your pocket

More tangible is the management of the devices that power our digital lives. Each year, the world generates 50 million tons of electronic waste containing resources worth more than 60 billion dollars. Only 17% of it is recycled—incidentally, Estonia is among the European leaders in bringing electronics into recycling.

Everyone knows how many old phones or computers they have resting in drawers at home, but altogether there are about 350 million tons of such devices. Less well known is that all these devices contain both toxic and valuable chemical elements; it is estimated that they hide raw materials worth 45 million dollars. That is why it is important that these devices reach recycling at the end of their life cycle—the materials can be used in new devices instead of extracting another batch from the Earth. Recycling one million mobile phones, for example, yields 16,000 kg of copper, 350 kg of silver, 34 kg of gold, and 15 kg of palladium.

In 2019, Professor Michael Hitch proposed that Estonia could become a country specializing in exactly this kind of “mining.” “By the time you have arrived at work, you have used hundreds of tools, products, and convenience items that could not exist without the mining, processing, and overall availability of minerals from different parts of the world,” he described at the beginning of his speech, and then made a proposal: “The future of raw material extraction in Estonia may not rely on traditional underground mining. Estonia could become a European leader in urban mining and in extracting strategic and other critical materials from waste. These waste materials can be used as resources to promote industrial synergies and integrated into existing value chains and processes.” He noted that extracting gold, copper, and other metals from discarded electronic devices is 13 times cheaper than mining new materials.

So if you also have an “electronics graveyard” at home—a small kind of treasure chest—then contribute your part and take your e-waste to a recycling station so that valuable elements can give life to new devices.