Artificial intelligence (AI) has made remarkable progress in recent years, yet its rapid expansion brings overlooked environmental and ethical challenges. This review explores four critical areas where AI's impact extends beyond performance: energy consumption, electronic waste (e-waste), inequality in compute access, and the hidden energy burden of cybersecurity systems. Drawing from recent studies and institutional reports, the paper highlights systemic issues such as high emissions from model training, rising hardware turnover, global infrastructure disparities, and the energy demands of securing AI. By connecting these concerns, the review contributes to Responsible AI discourse by identifying key research gaps and advocating for sustainable, transparent, and equitable development practices. Ultimately, it argues that AI's progress must align with ethical responsibility and environmental stewardship to ensure a more inclusive and sustainable technological future.

Photo credit: Muntaka Chasant, reproduced under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Just outside the historic German town of Goslar, a sprawling industrial complex receives an endless stream of discarded electronics. On arrival, this electronic waste is laboriously prepared for recycling. Electrocycling GmbH is one of the largest e-waste recycling facilities in Europe. Every year, it processes up to 80 000 tonnes of electronic waste, which comes in all shapes and forms.

The waste of electrical and electronic equipment has been increased due to the fast evolution of technology products and competition of many IT sectors. Every year millions of tons of electronic waste are thrown into the environment which causes high consequences for human health. Therefore, it is crucial to control this waste flow using technology, especially using Artificial Intelligence but also reclamation of critical raw materials for new production processes. In this paper, we focused on the measurement of recyclability of waste electronic components (WECs) from waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) using mathematical innovation model. This innovative approach evaluates both the recyclability and recycling difficulties of WECs, integrating an AI model for improved disassembly and sorting. Assessing the recyclability of individual electronic components present on WPCBs provides insight into the recovery potential of valuable materials and indicates the level of complexity involved in recycling in terms of economic worth and production utility. This novel measurement approach helps AI models in accurately determining the number of classes to be identified and sorted during the automated disassembly of discarded PCBs. It also facilitates the model in iterative training and validation of individual electronic components.

Pressure is growing on Microsoft to extend support for Windows 10, which is still the most widely used version of the operating system. The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) is demanding that the Redmond software company continue to provide security updates for Windows 10 beyond October 2025. PIRG has now launched the online petition Tell Microsoft: Don't leave millions of computers behind if you want to add your voice to the effort. The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) is an association of US and Canadian non-profit organizations that, among other things, work for consumer protection. The PIRG now points out that with the end of support for Windows 10 in 2025, millions of Windows computers will effectively become electronic waste.

Moatasem Jibril, a young man from Sudan, is realising his dream of conducting technological experiments to manufacture robots by using recycled electronic waste. Despite modest capabilities and living in a mud house in the city of Omdurman, west of the capital, Khartoum, Jibril did not give up on his dream of making a robot, even after having to quit university due to the deteriorating economic conditions of his family. For about ten years, Jibril has been trying to create robots in a narrow space inside his family house, and he challenges poverty by working daily in the market to earn money to purchase the materials he needs for his project. He hopes that his dream will be funded by any businessman or institution. Sudan is suffering from many crises, starting with a shortage of basic and imported commodities, as well as the depreciation of the local currency, in addition to the government's measures to lift fuel subsidies at the request of the International Monetary Fund in 2021.

A mushroom variety that is often been considered useless has now become the prime candidate for computer chip bases. Scientists say the mushroom's skins work nearly as well as traditional computer chip substrates. Researchers from the Johannes Kepler University in Austria stumbled upon the biodegradable alternative while analyzing the uses of fungi-derived materials. Their study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows Ganoderma lucidum mushroom skin works well as a substitute for the substrate used in electrical circuits. "There was a fair share of serendipity involved," Martin Kaltenbrunner, head of the university's Division of Soft Matter Physics and co-author of the paper, told CNN.

As the global chip shortage has been on the agenda for years, worries about it got even worse. On top of it, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has had a negative influence on the situation as well. Well, it seems there is. Engineers from Washington State University (WSU) have demonstrated that honey could be used to produce eco-friendly and brain-like computer chips, according to a study published in the Journal of Physics D. Inspired by human synapses, researchers processed honey into a solid form and jammed it between two metal electrodes to produce a structured design dubbed'memristor.' Honey memristors are able to mimic human neurons and switch on and off very quickly while maintaining information. "Honey does not spoil," said Feng Zhao, associate professor of WSU's School of Engineering and Computer Science and corresponding author of the study.

The covid-19 pandemic has caused a slump in the sale of electronic devices and a resulting fall in electronic waste, UN researchers have found. This may offer governments an opportunity to improve e-waste recycling, but the decline in sales has mostly affected poorer countries, which could widen the digital divide. In 2019, the global population created 53.6 million tonnes of e-waste – discarded electronics that contain toxic substances such as brominated flame retardants, lead and mercury. East and South-East Asia accounted for over 22 million tonnes of this waste, while Europe and North America generated slightly less than 20 million tonnes. Despite an increase in sales of devices like laptops and games consoles driven by home working and demand for entertainment during isolation and quarantine, the sale of electronic equipment worldwide decreased by 6.4 per cent in the first nine months of 2020 compared with sales estimates based on previous years.

In Milan, Italy, STIIMA, the National Research Council's Institute for Smart Industrial Technology Systems for Advanced Manufacturing, and the Polytechnic University of Milan have set up a joint experimental "re-manufacturing" and "de-manufacturing" facility. While still at a pilot experimental level, this is an excellent example of the enormous potential of artificial intelligence in the circular economy. This is because there are no similar plants in the world capable of managing electronic waste, understanding what the items are, dismantling them and recovering their useful or valuable components. For this reason, millions of tonnes of old TVs, monitors, broken PCs, telephones, and electrical appliances of every type, are piling up at waste sites, from where they are often taken to fuel an illegal and extremely polluting market. Its real size is difficult to estimate, but according to UNEP, the United Nations Environmental Protection agency, the global market for electronic waste is worth more than 62 billion dollars and only 20% of it is officially recycled.

Smartphone owners are being given new rights to have their device repaired under laws introduced by the EU that could put an end to'throwaway culture'. Manufacturers will made to fix broken electronic devices under the EU's new Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP), which will also cover the UK despite Brexit. The plan, unveiled on Wednesday by the European Commission, will give Europeans'the right to repair' by making devices easier to fix. The laws, which will also apply to tablets, laptops and printers, focus on a more circular economy – where electronic resources are kept in use as long as possible. Major tech companies making devices hard to fix, including Apple, Samsung and Huawei, is creating an electronic and electrical rubbish mountain – wasting resources and blighting the environment, say green campaigners.