Really, an ecological disaster? I tend to think of a disaster in terms of oil spills, nuclear meltdowns, etc. Somehow this doesn't seem to be quite the same class. Are you sure you aren't exaggerating just a bit?
I don't think it's a huge exaggeration - is it that hard to believe that the cumulative, massive force of modern manufacturing has a much, much larger ecological effect than any single oil spill or nuclear meltdown?
Hell, just go to China, or any of the many mining towns that still exist in the US - it's like a small oil spill, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, lasting decades at a time.
The mining and extraction of lithium and coltan requires massive amounts of water and energy [1][2]. In African countries with very little regulation, land, lakes, and rivers are polluted as a result of mining.
And what do we use it for? To produce some 15+ million million devices that are deprecated after two years.
Yes, that is tragic and a disaster for those countries. It's just that more attention is paid to events that unfold within days rather than years.
Hell, just go to China, or any of the many mining towns that still exist in the US - it's like a small oil spill, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, lasting decades at a time.