"Things are only going to get worse: The rapid adoption of AI could add between 1.2 million to 5 million metric tons of e-waste in total by 2030, according to a 2024 study published in Nature Computational Science. The high-performance hardware required for AI, such as GPUs and specialized servers, is advancing quickly. The rapid turnover for computing devices — about two to five years — leads to older parts becoming obsolete and being discarded quickly, too.

The Basel Convention, an international treaty that prohibits the illegal transfer of hazardous waste from developed to developing countries, has been in place since the 1990s but implementation is lacking. In 2018, when China’s National Sword policy banned the import of most foreign waste, the U.S. shifted these exports to other Asian and African nations. Most of these countries lack the public awareness and robust regulations to protect themselves from the ill effects on the environment, labor, and health.

In India, devices are far more likely to be repaired, resold, or rebuilt in the vast informal economy than dismantled by certified recyclers. These informal workers, like scrap dealers and small repair shops, prioritize quick value extraction, often using unsafe methods like open burning, acid baths, or manual dismantling."

https://restofworld.org/2026/global-ewaste-crisis/

#eWaste #AI #India #PlannedObsolescence #InformalEconomy #Recycling

Another (small) publication alert! I've written a literature review on several (very good) books about informal transport labour in Africa, reflecting a little bit on what "informality" means in the informal economy, especially regarding labour.

#Africa #Labour #InformalEconomy

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history/article/labor-and-informal-transport-in-africa/0CEEFDA41F55ABE86B3524273413A24F

How is the Digital Transformation Affecting Informal Businesses in the Global South? A 16-Countries Rapid Survey

"The informal sector is by far the world’s largest employer. [...]The United Nations Development Program has detected signals that informal businesses are embracing digital tools across the Global South. This is likely to have far-reaching implications in contexts where informal businesses account for a large part of economic activity."

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7896327

#informalEconomy

Beneath The Wage: Tips, Tasks, and Gigs in the Age of Service Work

Annie McClanahan

(Zone Books)

"Today, 80 percent of U.S. workers do service work, from delivering takeout to mopping floors to teaching. Each time we are handed a bag of groceries or a cup of coffee, call for a cab or have our homework graded, we confront both the enormity and the intimacy of the contemporary service sector.

Do these jobs have anything in common? Who is doing this work? And what kind of labor politics does it generate?

If service work has often been treated as a footnote to modern capitalism, Beneath the Wage reveals it as crucial to understanding how exploitation functions today. Uncovering a history that runs from eighteenth-century servants to present-day gig workers, Annie McClanahan retheorizes capitalism from the perspective of the service economy, challenging conventional assumptions about how work is waged, regulated, managed, and automated.

Assembling a diverse set of sources for understanding and reimagining service work—from reality television and conceptual poetry to novels and workers’ own descriptions of what they do—McClanahan explores three paradigmatic types of contemporary service labor: superexploited tipwork, deskilled clerical microwork, and informalized gigwork. She shows how work done “beneath the wage” depends on racialized and gendered forms of economic domination, is often excluded from labor organizing and regulation, and yet has begun to generate a new politics of social reproduction and solidarity."

https://www.zonebooks.org/books/293-beneath-the-wage-tips-tasks-and-gigs-in-the-age-of-service-work

#GigEconomy #FoodDelivery #GigWork #InformalEconomy

Technology Times (Nigeria): Moniepoint unveils ‘M’, AI chatbot to offer insights into Nigeria’s informal economy. “Moniepoint has unveiled M, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot designed to provide real-time data and insights on Nigeria’s informal economy, offering students, stakeholders, and researchers a new digital gateway to information beyond traditional reports.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/11/13/technology-times-moniepoint-unveils-m-ai-chatbot-to-offer-insights-into-nigerias-informal-economy/

OnlineFirst - "The plat-formalisation fallacy" by Rich Mallett:

#informaleconomy #formalisation #digitallabourplatforms #motorcycletaxis #Uganda

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0308518X251374649