MEDIA RELEASE: AI Data Centre Inquiry: Questions Remain for Firmus Over e-waste Plans

Tasmanians have a right to know where the e-waste from 444MW of compute is going to end up.

In a direct question at today's Inquiry into AI Data Centres, Independent MP Helen Burnet asked Firmus to detail its plan for the inevitable electronic waste that comes from fast-moving technology.

"We've heard from you about the plans to deal with energy and water, but the community hasn't seen anything about how you intend to deal with e-waste. So can you tell the public and the committee how much e-waste do you expect to generate? Do you have forecasts or details that you can share with the committee? And what plans do you have for dumping that e-waste? What waste facilities will you be using?" asked Ms Burnet.

The response from Firmus was anything but direct and certainly lacked any detail.

Firmus Technologies – through Tim Rosenfield (Co-CEO) – answered by saying that he "would like to just be able to follow up with from my community team and planning team on what we have submitted around e-waste, because I am fairly certain that we would be able to provide some of that information".

"I'm looking forward to hearing back from Firmus and I will make sure we do", says Helen Burnet, "because as you can imagine we are expecting tonnes and tonnes of compute to come into the state, which when discarded equals tonnes and tonnes of e-waste that typically contain toxins like lead, mercury, cadmium and forever chemicals."

Even though there were no specifics given, Mr Rosenfield stated that there are very well-documented e-waste recovery pathways for computer hardware.

"Everything and anything we do goes through an approved process. So if we are removing items from our AI factory or our data center in the case, oil or computers, they go through a processing facility...they're recycled or they're recovered by the party that we've contracted to do that, so it's a normal process."

"Saying you're going to send all your e-waste to recycling without talking about who will do that, where it will be done and what will happen to the parts that cannot be recycled seems like a 'too good to be true' answer to me", said Ms Burnet.

"Firmus are not the only company looking to build in Tasmania. This will be an ongoing issue for Tasmania and its waste management sites as more and more AI data centres come into the state.  Full transparency about where this material will end up is something I look forward to seeing".

According to a report by the non-profit environmental group Basel Action Network (BAN), the drive to build thousands of massive data centres for AI is creating a “tsunami” of discarded electronics, putting the world on a course to triple its annual generation of toxic e-waste in the next 25 years.

Reference: https://wiki.ban.org/images/1/16/AI_Waste_Wave_Part_1.pdf