Sean Jones Director of Circular
Technology Ellen MacArthur
Foundation
“ Because of the high demand, there is a strong intrinsic motivation among all of the cloud infrastructure operators to reuse and repair as much as possible,” Sean explains.“ They don’ t want to give the chips or copper away.”
Although data centres are effective at retaining components internally, tracking recycled inputs in new hardware remains challenging. Unlike consumer electronics brands like Apple, Samsung and Google, which actively source recycled minerals, data centre builders often prioritise construction speed over recycled content because of supply constraints.
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elements in mobile phones – including copper and cobalt – end up in waste streams or shipping containers bound for other regions
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