The research by the non-profit group Material Focus found about 1.7bn was spent last year on Christmas lighting, including 39m sets of fairy lights. Consumers bought a further 28m light-up items such as garlands, wreaths, stars and snow globes, along with 23m light-up figures and characters and 16m pre-lit Christmas trees.
Every solar array, battery system, and EV charger installed over the past decade will eventually need to be decommissioned. Yet there's no unifying system to handle that flow of materials-no operating system for the reverse supply chain that the circular economy depends on. While Americans recycle 97% of vehicles, we recycle less than 20% of electronics, leaving valuable critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and gold to languish in warehouses or end up in landfills.
They were among the hottest gadgets of the 2010s. But Apple has classed three more of its popular products as 'obsolete' - barely a decade after their release. Owners still holding on to these devices will be without support if something goes wrong with them. That's because the tech giant does not provide any hardware services for an obsolete product. All Apple products go through three categories - current, vintage, and obsolete - in the space of their relatively short lifespan.
