Big Tech is currently performing a rather awkward fan dance, trying to cover up its rape and pillage of the earth’s more finite resources with its rapidly shrinking green credentials. Silicon Valley’s green credentials may, however, soon vanish altogether under the vast amount of e-waste the rapid rollout of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has already started to generate.

Measures such as the installation of waterless urinals and charging points for e-vehicles for Big Tech staff are merely Silicon Valley window dressing for what has always been an incredibly dirty and polluting industry. Named after the material used to manufacture semiconductors in Intel’s chip fabrication plants, Silicon Valley began with an ugly reputation for allowing vast amounts of toxic chemicals to seep into the local environment, allegedly making their way into the bodies of workers and children. Californian locals ruefully commented that the area should be renamed “Cyanide Valley”, as the notorious poison, which is used in the manufacture of semi-conductors, was claimed to have seeped into local soil and water sources.