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Cell Phone Scrap and Urban Mining
That old cell phone you have been using for a couple of years might be worth its price in Gold and Silver! Before you throw it away, read this. A Cell Phone has several circuit boards (also known as PCB’s) inside. There could be gold, silver, Palladium, copper, lead and many other precious metal scrap inside. Some of these precious metals and semi precious metals are at near-record prices, so it could get you a some dollars! All cell phone scrap contains integrated circuits that can be reused for the cellular industry. This is, what some call "urban mining" - where you look through old electronics products to search for valuable gems like gold, silver and even iridium. This is a growing industry throughout the world, as the prices of these metals are rising. A ton of discarded Cell phones yields more than 30 times the amount of scrap gold yielded from one ton of ore coming out from a gold mine? Research conducted by Yokohama Metal reveals that a ton of ore from a gold mine produces a mere 5g of gold on average, while a ton of discarded Cell phone scrap could yield 150g (roughly 5 ounces) or more. In addition, the same volume discarded Cell phone scrap produces approximately 100kg (approx. 220 pounds) of scrap copper and 3kg (6.6 pounds) of scrap silver, as well as a number of other metals. The recycling of Cell phones remains popular as metal prices hit an all time high. In the US, gold trades for roughly $930 an ounce, after hitting a historic high of $1,030 in March, 2008. Not only has the price of gold hit a record high; copper, tin, and silver prices are also well above long-term averages. The recycled metal from such cell phone scrap can be used in the production of new electronic items; or the gold and other metals are scarped out and sent to refineries. First, the recycled electronics and other gadgets are sorted into different groups and disassembled manually. Then, it is placed in chemicals that dissolve unneeded materials, and then, the metal that is left is further refined. Refined metals, like Gold can also be, then sold to jewelers, speculators, and manufacturers, who use gold as a conductor in the production of circuit boards for new Cell phones or any other electronic gadget. In Japan, they use recycled electronics because there are plenty of old electronics such as cell phones and other gadgets that are tossed away by consumers annually that can be used to feed the billion dollar electronics industry. Japan is poor in natural resources, may be because of the scarce land, so recycling of old electronics to get the metals back is the best way to make sure that they keep making new electronics. The environmental industry struggles to get enough old cell phones for their recycling plants, despite a growing interest in the environment and recycling. In Japan, the 128 million people average a cell phone use of two years and eight months. Thus, many cell phones are discarded every year, but only 10 to 20% of phones are recycled because people would rather store them in their cupboards to keep the personal data on their phones from being violated. Only 558 tons of old phones were collected to be reused in the year to March 2007. This is down a third from three years ago, according to industry figures. With metal prices on the rise, the recyclers encounter a growing competition for scrap, raising prices for all. Some companies in U.S. are importing old circuit boards from Singapore and Indonesia, due to the fact that they contain valuable minor metals that are particularly desirable. Iridium, one of these minor metals, is heavily used in flat panel televisions and computer screens. Antimony and bismuth are vital for producing an array of high-tech products. Due to the fact that China's export controls are tightened, these metals are difficult to obtain, which subsequently make it more difficult for U.S. and Japanese manufactures to acquire them. That is where the urban mining comes in play. |
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