The rapid digitalization of society has ushered in an era of unprecedented connectivity and data-driven innovation, yet it has also introduced a suite of "invisible pollutants" – environmental externalities that are often overlooked in discussions of sustainability. This narrative review reexamines these risks, conceptualizing data centers, digital waste streams, and escalating energy demands as novel forms of pollution that contribute to climate change, resource depletion, and ecological degradation. Drawing on peer-reviewed literature from 2019 to 2025, we synthesize evidence on the environmental footprints of digital infrastructure, including greenhouse gas emissions from energy-intensive operations, water consumption for cooling, electronic waste generation from hardware lifecycles, and supply chain impacts from rare earth mineral extraction. Key themes include the exponential growth of data centers driven by artificial intelligence and cloud computing, which exacerbate energy demands and carbon emissions, and the mismanagement of digital waste, leading to toxic pollution and health hazards. The review highlights mitigation strategies such as energy-efficient designs, circular economy approaches, and regulatory frameworks, while underscoring the novelty of treating these digital elements as pollutants to foster interdisciplinary discourse. Objectives are to provide a comprehensive overview of emerging risks, identify knowledge gaps, and propose pathways for sustainable digitalization. Ultimately, this work advocates for integrating environmental considerations into digital policy to align technological progress with planetary boundaries.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
