A comparison
Printed circuit board assembly and Smartphone
Two figures compared the only honest way: calculated together, so that what they have in common moves them together, and read as how many times larger one is than the other, with a range.
Is something on this page wrong? Report it →
Side by side, per kilogram
Scenario Economic-embedded, using FIGARO 2023. Each figure is the middle result of 2,000 runs of the calculation, with the range that holds nine in ten of them beside it, and the grade that range earns.
Printed circuit board assembly
1.6 × 10⁻⁶ per kilogram(0.60–3.4 × 10⁻⁶)LOWS-MAX · run 2259 · methodology v1.0 · data dv-20261007-44r
One item is one kilogram of assembled printed circuit board.
Smartphone
2.2 × 10⁻⁷ per kilogram(0.85–4.7 × 10⁻⁷)LOWS-MAX · run 2259 · methodology v1.0 · data dv-20261007-44r
One item is one smartphone of 135 g, the average of 12 disassembled models from 2004 to 2015.
Which is larger
Printed circuit board assembly carries more harm than Smartphone per kilogram — even the low end of the range says so.
Printed circuit board assembly against Smartphone, per kilogram: ×7.1 as much, and very probably (nine times in ten) between ×5.2–×9.6.
In 100% of the runs calculated together, Printed circuit board assembly comes out above Smartphone.
Calculated together: the same records of harm, the same split of each industry and the same world production in every run, and each product’s own list of materials. Seeing whether two separate ranges overlap would prove nothing either way.
The reason they differ
Deaths per kilogram of each product, by what carries them, with the largest difference first.
By raw material
| Material | Printed circuit board assembly | Smartphone | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | 1.5 × 10⁻⁶ | 2.1 × 10⁻⁷ | +1.3 × 10⁻⁶ |
| Copper | 4.2 × 10⁻⁸ | 8.2 × 10⁻⁹ | +3.4 × 10⁻⁸ |
| Silver | 2.6 × 10⁻⁸ | 3.6 × 10⁻⁹ | +2.2 × 10⁻⁸ |
| Tin | 1.7 × 10⁻⁸ | 2.4 × 10⁻⁹ | +1.5 × 10⁻⁸ |
| Tantalum | 1.7 × 10⁻⁹ | 2.4 × 10⁻¹⁰ | +1.5 × 10⁻⁹ |
| Nickel | 3.9 × 10⁻¹⁰ | 5.5 × 10⁻¹¹ | +3.4 × 10⁻¹⁰ |
| Zinc | 1.3 × 10⁻¹⁰ | 1.8 × 10⁻¹¹ | +1.1 × 10⁻¹⁰ |
| Iron ore | 7.0 × 10⁻¹¹ | 1.4 × 10⁻¹⁰ | −7.4 × 10⁻¹¹ |
By country where the harm was counted
| Country | Printed circuit board assembly | Smartphone | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sudan | 7.0 × 10⁻⁷ | 9.8 × 10⁻⁸ | +6.0 × 10⁻⁷ |
| Burkina Faso | 4.8 × 10⁻⁷ | 6.7 × 10⁻⁸ | +4.1 × 10⁻⁷ |
| Mali | 1.7 × 10⁻⁷ | 2.4 × 10⁻⁸ | +1.5 × 10⁻⁷ |
| Mexico | 1.3 × 10⁻⁷ | 1.8 × 10⁻⁸ | +1.1 × 10⁻⁷ |
| Congo, Dem. Rep. | 4.3 × 10⁻⁸ | 7.9 × 10⁻⁹ | +3.5 × 10⁻⁸ |
| Colombia | 1.0 × 10⁻⁸ | 1.4 × 10⁻⁹ | +8.7 × 10⁻⁹ |
| Myanmar | 9.1 × 10⁻⁹ | 1.3 × 10⁻⁹ | +7.8 × 10⁻⁹ |
| Canada | 4.5 × 10⁻⁹ | 6.4 × 10⁻¹⁰ | +3.9 × 10⁻⁹ |
Middle estimates. The range above belongs to the totals; these rows show where the middle difference comes from.
By the money method
- Printed circuit board assembly — 1.4 × 10⁻⁶ per €1,000 spent in its industry(0.94–2.2 × 10⁻⁶)MEDIUMS-MAX · run 2259 · methodology v1.0 · data dv-20261007-44r
- Smartphone — 1.4 × 10⁻⁶ per €1,000 spent in its industry(0.89–2.1 × 10⁻⁶)MEDIUMS-MAX · run 2259 · methodology v1.0 · data dv-20261007-44r
Shown, not ranked. Measured per euro, most industries are too close to tell apart, and two products from the same industry always get the same figure per euro.
What this figure is not
Production phase only. Harm from using the product — driving the car, charging the phone — is not in this figure.
HumanToll 2026, run 2259, methodology v1.0. https://quiescence.eu/humantoll/compare/circuit-board/smartphone/