{"id":215105,"date":"2026-01-06T22:34:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T22:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/06\/wearable-health-devices-could-generate-a-million-tons-of-e-waste-by-2050-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T22:34:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T22:34:40","slug":"wearable-health-devices-could-generate-a-million-tons-of-e-waste-by-2050-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/06\/wearable-health-devices-could-generate-a-million-tons-of-e-waste-by-2050-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Wearable health devices could generate a million tons of e-waste by 2050 | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This week in Las Vegas, <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/storyline\/ces-2026-follow-live-for-the-first-official-day-with-ring-mobileye-siemens-robots-ai-and-more\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tech companies at CES 2026<\/a> are unveiling the latest wearable health devices \u2014 glucose monitors, blood pressure trackers, fitness trackers. Probably <em>not<\/em> mentioned at the show is that these gadgets might be creating a massive environmental problem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It isn\u2019t something that tends to get much attention but a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/news.cornell.edu\/stories\/2026\/01\/study-examines-carbon-footprint-wearable-health-tech\" target=\"_blank\">new study<\/a> from Cornell University and the University of Chicago found that by 2050, demand for health wearables could hit 2 billion units per year, or 42 times more than today. Unless we change how they\u2019re made, these devices could generate over a million tons of electronic waste and 100 million tons of carbon dioxide over that same period, the authors warn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An even bigger surprise is that it\u2019s not the plastic that\u2019s the problem. The study, published in Nature, found that the printed circuit board \u2014 the device\u2019s \u201cbrain\u201d \u2014 accounts for 70% of its carbon footprint largely due to intensive mining and manufacturing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The researchers suggest two fixes: develop chips using common metals like copper instead of rare minerals like gold, and make devices modular so the circuit board can be reused while the outer covering gets replaced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wrote one of the study\u2019s co-authors, \u201cWhen these devices are deployed at global scale, small design choices add up quickly.\u201d It\u2019s something to think about while scrolling through CES announcements.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/01\/06\/wearable-health-devices-could-generate-a-million-tons-of-e-waste-by-2050\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week in Las Vegas, tech companies at CES 2026 are unveiling the latest wearable health devices \u2014 glucose monitors, blood pressure trackers, fitness trackers. Probably not mentioned at the show is that these gadgets might be creating a massive environmental problem. It isn\u2019t something that tends to get much attention but a new study [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-215105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}