In Telecoms what is the circular economy?
Matt and guest Stephanie McLarty, Head of Sustainability at Quantum Lifestyle Partners, discuss e-waste and new sustainability strategies for recycling and re-use.
Dec 7, 2023
In Telecoms what is the circular economy?
Welcome back to the Canadian series of the Great Indoors! Host Matt Roberts is joined by Stephanie McLarty to discuss the circular economy and e-waste in the telecommunications industry. Stephanie is the Head of Sustainability at Quantum Lifestyle Partners, a company that operates state-of-the-art recycling and re-using programs for e-waste. She is also a speaker, lecturer and host of The Circular Future podcast. Because of the rapid pace at which technology develops, large enterprises are constantly moving onto new hardware every 2-3 years, leaving behind considerable waste.
“What Quantum essentially does is that we close the loop in terms of the circular economy. We know now that the linear economy, which is that ‘take/make/waste’ model where you landfill things. It doesn't work. And there's lots of implications. So what we're doing is essentially closing that loop through reuse and recycling solutions. But an interesting byproduct of that in terms of bridging the digital divide, is we help to enable digital equity.“
Stephanie has spent her career developing ways to deal with this waste sustainably, and she and Matt dive into the strategies being employed to do so. They discuss the challenges of recycling tech, the important role of re-using, and important new developments like the right-to-repair legislation. They also discuss the future, and whether we are doing enough to combat climate change and e-waste.
