E-waste has become a global problem. Unfortunately, the majority of discarded used technology, known as e-waste, is dumped or processed in unsafe conditions. Around 78% of electronic products aren’t properly recycled — and the garbage pile keeps growing.

In 2024, the world churned out 1.22 billion smartphones. Add this to the billions of TVs, laptops, and computers, and what we have is a saturated market that fuels a throwaway cycle. 

A United Nations report forecasts that e-waste will grow to 80 million tonnes by 2030. “That’s enough to fill 1.5 million 40-ton trucks, which could circle the planet,” says Eric Ingebretsen, Chief Commercial Officer at SK Tes, which runs 40 global IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) sites and processes hundreds of millions of pounds of electronics annually. 

Clearly, the world urgently needs e-waste projects that can reverse the global situation — while driving business.  

A Danish robotic solution

At the Danish Technological Institute, researchers are building an AI-driven robotic system that could help tackle e-waste while scaling, modernising, and empowering the tech refurbishment industry.  

 

 

The system is equipped with a robotic arm, a dedicated toolbox, and a camera. It’s trained to replace laptop screens — a manual and time-consuming task that local businesses struggle to find workers for due to the tedious processes involved, Olsen said. 

Olsen and his team have already trained the robot to replace screens of two laptop models and their submodels. They’re now hard at work to expand the robot’s screen disassembly capabilities to more laptop models and brands.