| HN Mirror

TBH I cannot, which is why I talked of doubt in the quantity comparison, and it’s a fair point to pull me up on. My broader point was that people associate film with chemicals often because they have been within sniffing distance of a darkroom or developed film at school. They do not associate consumer electronics with chemicals, when silicon chip manufacturing involves some true nasties that you would not be able to safely go near to with gloves and tongs like a fixer.

It’s just my instinct based on what I know of the processes involved in manufacturing the main bits that are different between even a late era film SLR and a contemporary mirrorless camera —- displays, high density batteries, sensors, additional microcontrollers and usually two powerful CPUs.

The nastiest bit is the sensors, which are very large chips.

But given the sheer amount of electronics in it and what we know of the impacts of toxic waste pollution in Taiwan and other silicon manufacturing centres, and even just CO2 emissions, it seems likely to me that the contents of a digital camera are likely worth hundreds of rolls of film and their prints in terms of pollution impact once you consider all the processes that are involved in controlling that pollution.

The average secondhand consumer digital camera in my experience has shot in the low thousands, where that data is easily found still; it’s getting harder to find shutter activation data and it may not really be a useful guide anymore. But in the DSLR era it was normal to find secondhand kit with use equivalent to 50 to 80 rolls of film at the very most.

This is why secondhand camera companies and hire shops are so important, because they extend the useful life of what is otherwise e-waste. And I think there's a lot of delayed e-waste out there; people who own DSLRs but haven't chucked them because they are occasionally still better than their phones.