International E-Waste Day 2026

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It’s International E-Waste Day 2026!

🌱 Why is there an International E-Waste Day?

International E-Waste Day, which is held annually on October 14th, intends to create awareness around the global impacts of e-waste and to promote circularity in electronic and electrical products. The day was initiated by the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum and it was first held in 2018, which makes today the ninth International E-Waste Day!

🌱 What is the focus this year?

The slogan this year is: “Fast Tech: Don’t Bin It, Bring It!”. With this slogan, a spotlight is being put on “FastTech”, which includes a variety of different small and inexpensive gadgets that are often only used for relatively short periods of time – such as electronic toys, LED lights, mini fans, and USB adapters. FastTech is in essence the electronic version of fast fashion. To avoid contributing to the growing wave of FastTech, you should carefully consider whether you really need a new electronic device before each purchase, if you could buy the device secondhand, and if – and how easily – the device can be repaired.

🌱 Why is FastTech purchased?

According to the WEEE Forum, “Fast Tech has become a routine consumer purchase, driven largely by low prices, convenience and modest expectations of how long products need to last”. While “consumers value durability”, “the convenience and low price of Fast Tech frequently win out” and result in large amounts of e-waste being produced. In practice, consumers often also underestimate or overlook the environmental impacts of buying FastTech. The WEEE Forum says that “[w]hile 46% [of consumers] expect Fast Tech to have a shorter lifespan than more expensive alternatives, only 21% consider it more environmentally harmful” and only “16% simultaneously associate Fast Tech with both [a] shorter life and greater environmental harm”.

🌱 How much FastTech do Europeans consume?

According to a survey of 10245 adults in 12 European countries, which was commissioned by the WEEE Forum and conducted by Bellegarde Scientific Consulting, “nearly 90% of European consumers own ‘fast tech’, 29% hoard unused devices at home, [and] 27% trash them”. The research also found that 78% of European consumers bought one piece of FastTech in the past year. On a similar note, research from Material Focus showed that over half a billion small FastTech electrical items were purchased in the UK in 2022 alone, which means that 16 FastTech devices were purchased each second of the year.

🌱 Do consumers know what they are buying?

The findings of the WEEE Forum’s “Fast Tech Consumer Study” suggest that consumers often knowingly buy electronics that are inexpensive on the premise that they function for a while and can easily be replaced later on. The study showed that “58% of [European] buyers could recall a Fast Tech product they had used for no more than six months, including 39% who recalled one they discarded unused, after a single use or within a month”. Notably however, also “61% of Fast Tech consumers say they are satisfied overall, and only 8% are dissatisfied”.

🌱 What happens to unwanted or broken FastTech?

When FastTech becomes unwanted or breaks, 27% of the buyers only use waste-disposal routes and 32% only use recycling or reuse routes. In practice, 29% of the surveyed buyers kept their unwanted or broken FastTech devices at home, “27% took products to recycling centers or municipal facilities and 19% used in-store collection points”. Alongside these approaches, the incorrect disposal of FastTech is a widespread problem. 23% of the surveyed buyers reported that they put FastTech in their ordinary household waste, 21% said they put it in plastics recycling, and 7% admitting to tossing it into street bins. Amongst others, the incorrect disposal of FastTech can lead to battery fires and valuable resources being lost.

💡 Are you interested in learning more about e-waste and its impacts? Then, have a read through our blog posts or check out the hashtag #EWasteDay.