Computer makers, HP said it had that it made use of over one billion pounds of recycled materials in its products and packaging since 2019.

The company's Senior Vice President, Product Design and Sustainability, Stacy Wolff, disclosed this in a statement.

Wolff said HP deploy increasing amounts of recycled materials such as plastics, identify sustainable materials for future products, design devices for easy repair and recycling and create products with longer lifespans and potential for second lives.

He gave an example of the HP Dragonfly laptop, which was designed a little over five years ago, that uses a mere seven grammes of recycled plastic.

He said 100 per cent of personal computers, workstations, displays and HP original toner cartridges contain recycled content.

According to Wolff, the Dragonfly notebook that was released in 2023, now contains large amounts of recycled aluminium and magnesium, post-consumer recycled plastic, as well as ocean-bound plastic.

"The definition of good design is always evolving, ideally anticipating changes rather than reacting to them. Consumer demand for sustainable products is a good example of how public expectations shape product design.

"We know people around the world prefer devices that have as little impact on the environment as possible; we also recognize that sustainable design is a must to keep our planet habitable for human beings, " he said.

He also warned that if the current trend of using plastic, a material used to manufacture most products, including electronic devices, continues, by 2050 yearly plastic production could reach 1.1 billion metric tonnes.

This he said would not only be unsustainable in terms of climate impact, but will be dangerous for the world's ecosystems because the material breaks down into microplastics.