{"id":16432,"date":"2025-07-14T14:36:47","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T13:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/?post_type=gsma_theme_study&#038;p=16432"},"modified":"2026-01-21T20:55:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:55:42","slug":"ericsson-20-years-of-ericsson-product-e-waste-management-stemming-the-tide-of-telecom-e-waste","status":"publish","type":"gsma_theme_study","link":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/gsma_study\/ericsson-20-years-of-ericsson-product-e-waste-management-stemming-the-tide-of-telecom-e-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Ericsson &#8211; 20 years of Ericsson Product e-waste management &#8211; Stemming the tide of telecom e-waste"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>E-waste is still one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world. In 2022, an estimated 62<br>million tons of e-waste were produced globally. Only 22.3% was documented as formally<br>collected and recycled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Ericsson launched its Product Take-back programme in 2005. This offers customers a free<br>collection and recycling service for end-of-life telecom equipment including Ericsson and non-Ericsson<br>material. The programme is also used to manage e-waste generated by Ericsson\u2019s internal<br>operations. The recycling is done by Ericsson\u2019s third-party suppliers, who have global coverage<br>and obtain the required licenses to ensure legal compliance and sound environmental e-waste<br>treatment. Ericsson only uses global recognised recyclers with proven high recycling rate and<br>latest standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Over the past 20 years Ericsson has collected and recycled 165,000 metric tons of e-waste<br>globally. The e-waste has primarily been collected from 307 operators but also from its<br>internal operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Ericsson&#8217;s high standards for recycling have resulted in more than 95% of material recycled from<br>the collected volumes over the past 20 years, reaching 97% in its last 2024 report. The programme<br>has other environmental benefits, such as mitigating obsolete hardware ending up<br>in uncontrolled landfills and business benefits such fulfilling high standards for data protection keeping sensitive information safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ericsson.com\/492c74\/assets\/local\/investors\/documents\/2024\/sustainability-and-corporate-responsibility-report-2024-en.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Learn more<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past 20 years Ericsson has collected and recycled 165,000 metric tons of e-waste globally. Discover how and why in this case study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"image":"","json":{"gsma_study_logo":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ericsson-logo_200x200.jpg","gsma_study_category":"0","gsma_study_member":"0","gsma_study_website":"","gsma_study_email":"","gsma_study_twitter":"","gsma_study_facebook":"","gsma_study_linkedin":"","gsma_study_country":"","gsma_study_bg":false,"gsma_study_video":"","gsma_study_sdg":"","gsma_study_hfi":null,"gsma_study_orgs":""},"cats":{"circularity-region":[{"term_id":3552,"name":"Europe","slug":"circularity-region-europe","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3552,"taxonomy":"casestudy_categories","description":"","parent":3550,"count":33,"filter":"raw"}],"circularity-topic":[{"term_id":3622,"name":"Scope 3 and Supply Chain","slug":"scope-3-and-supply-chain","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3622,"taxonomy":"casestudy_categories","description":"","parent":3542,"count":7,"filter":"raw"}]},"orgs":[]},"tags":[],"casestudy_categories":[3552,3622],"algolia_discover_type":[3511],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.3 (Yoast SEO v23.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ericsson - 20 years of Ericsson Product e-waste management - Stemming the tide of telecom e-waste - External Affairs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over the past 20 years Ericsson has collected and recycled 165,000 metric tons of e-waste globally. Discover how and why in this case study.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/gsma_study\/ericsson-20-years-of-ericsson-product-e-waste-management-stemming-the-tide-of-telecom-e-waste\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ericsson - 20 years of Ericsson Product e-waste management - Stemming the tide of telecom e-waste\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the past 20 years Ericsson has collected and recycled 165,000 metric tons of e-waste globally. Discover how and why in this case study.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/gsma_study\/ericsson-20-years-of-ericsson-product-e-waste-management-stemming-the-tide-of-telecom-e-waste\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"External Affairs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gsma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-21T20:55:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@GSMA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ericsson - 20 years of Ericsson Product e-waste management - Stemming the tide of telecom e-waste - External Affairs","description":"Over the past 20 years Ericsson has collected and recycled 165,000 metric tons of e-waste globally. 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