Unveiling the Secret Carbon Cache in Your Gadgets

At any moment, crude oil is extracted from the Earth’s depths. Some of that substance is sent to a refinery to be transformed into plastic, subsequently becoming the device in your palm, the curtains in your home, the decorations adorning your festive tree.

While researchers are aware of how much carbon dioxide is released during the manufacturing of these goods (acquiring a new iPhone is comparable to traveling over 200 miles), there is minimal inquiry into how much is stored within them. A study released on Friday in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability estimates that billions of tons of carbon from fossil resources — coal, oil, and gas — have been sequestered in devices, construction materials, and other durable human-made products over a recent 25-year span, concealed in what researchers term the “technosphere.”

The research from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands indicates that 400 million tons of carbon is added to the technosphere’s inventory annually, increasing at a marginally quicker pace than fossil fuel emissions. However, in many instances, the technosphere does not retain that carbon indefinitely; when objects are discarded and incinerated, they contribute to warming the climate as well. In 2011, 9 percent of all extracted fossil carbon was integrated into goods and infrastructure within the technosphere, a quantity nearly equal to that year’s emissions from the European Union if it were incinerated.

“It’s like a ticking time bomb,” commented Klaus Hubacek, an ecological economist at the University of Groningen and the principal author of the paper. “We extract vast fossil resources from the earth and deposit them in the technosphere, leaving them to linger. But what occurs after an object’s lifespan?”

The term “technosphere” originated in 1960, when science journalist Wil Lepkowski stated that “modern man has become a goal-less, solitary captive of his technosphere” in an article for the journal Science. Since then, the expression, a clever take on “biosphere,” has been utilized by ecologists and geologists to contend with the excessive material that humanity has engulfed the planet with.

“The dilemma is that we have been extraordinarily extravagant as we’ve been constructing and producing items,” noted Jan Zalasiewicz, a paleobiology professor at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who was not part of the University of Groningen study.

In 2016, Zalasiewicz and his team published a paper estimating that the technosphere had burgeoned to roughly 30 trillion tonnes, an amount 100,000 times more than the combined weight of all humans stacked together. The paper also discovered that the quantity of “technofossils” — distinctive types of manmade artifacts — surpassed the number of unique life species on the planet. In 2020, another group of investigators found that the technosphere doubles in size approximately every 20 years and now likely exceeds the weight of all living organisms.

“The inquiry is, how does the technosphere impact the biosphere?” Zalasiewicz remarked. Plastic bags and fishing nets, for instance, can suffocate the wildlife that encounters them. And unlike natural ecosystems, such as forests and oceans that can absorb carbon dioxide from the air, humans are “not very efficient at recycling,” Zalasiewicz pointed out.

Addressing the disposal of all this material in a more environmentally responsible manner is exactly the issue that the researchers from the University of Groningen aim to highlight. Their study examined the 8.4 billion tons of fossil carbon contained within human-made items that were in use for at least a year from 1995 to 2019. Nearly 30 percent of this carbon was embedded within rubber and plastic, primarily in household appliances, while an additional quarter was confined in bitumen, a byproduct of crude oil utilized in construction.

“Once you discard these items, the question arises, how do you manage that carbon?” queried Kaan Hidiroglu, a co-author of the study and an energy and environmental studies PhD candidate at the University of Groningen. “If you incinerate it, you immediately emit additional carbon into the atmosphere, which is something we definitely wish to avoid.”

Each year, the paper estimates, about a third of these fossil-based products in the technosphere are incinerated. Another third is sent to landfills, which may serve as a type of long-term carbon storage. Unfortunately, the authors concede, these sites often leach chemicals, release methane, or disperse microplastics into the ecosystem. Slightly less than a third is recycled — a solution that presents its own challenges — and a small fraction ends up as litter.

“There are numerous facets to the dilemma and treating it appropriately,” Hubacek remarked. Nevertheless, he indicated that landfills can serve as a good initial step if they are managed efficiently. The study reveals that the majority of fossil carbon placed into landfills decomposes gradually and remains contained over 50 years. Creating products in a manner that permits recycling and durability can assist in maintaining the carbon trapped for extended periods.

Ultimately, Hubacek asserted, the true solution begins with individuals contemplating whether they genuinely require so many possessions. “Reduce consumption and strive to avoid production in the first instance. But once you possess it, that’s when we need to consider what to do next.”

This article first appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/science/gadgets-carbon-sinks-technosphere-study/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization committed to narrating stories of climate solutions and an equitable future. Discover more at Grist.org.