Raw Materials and Mining

A digital device starts life as materials dug out of the ground. Raw materials are the basic substances taken from the Earth before anything is manufactured, and many of them are obtained by mining — digging open pits or tunnelling underground to reach rock that holds useful minerals and metals.

Damage caused by mining

Mining harms the environment in two main ways. Land contamination happens when the chemicals used to separate metal from rock, and the metals themselves, soak into soil and wash into streams and groundwater, so land can be too toxic to grow crops and the pollution spreads downstream. Erosion happens because digging removes the soil and the plants whose roots held it in place, so rain washes loose soil and rock away and slopes can collapse.

Finite and non-renewable

Metals and minerals formed over millions of years in the Earth's crust, so there is only a fixed amount. That makes them non-renewable and finite: once accessible supplies are dug up and built into devices, they cannot be replaced, and getting the next batch out becomes harder and more expensive. Non-renewable is not the same as non-recyclable — the copper in an old pair of headphones can be recovered and used again, which stretches supplies, but the deposits on Earth are still limited.

Plastics

Not every part of a device comes from a mine. The shell of a games controller and the insulation around a charging cable are plastics, made from crude oil — another non-renewable resource. Plastic that is not recycled is usually buried in landfill or burned. Buried plastic takes hundreds of years to break down and crumbles into tiny pieces that spread through soil and water, while burning it releases harmful gases. Recycling plastic parts means less new oil is extracted and less waste is left behind.