A ton of recycled iPhones can yield about 300 times more gold than mining
In the UK, nearly 5 million people admit to throwing away their old phones when they no longer need them. This action contributes to the pollution of each school with harmful chemicals released naturally without recycling. Some include mercury in batteries, liquid crystal displays or motherboards; lead in detail joints; beryllium in battery contacts and electronic connectors; Arsenic, silica in processing chips…
For that reason, a recycling company called Back Market recently launched advertising campaigns urging consumers to send their old unused phones to recycling facilities instead of throwing them away.
“One recycled phone saves 258 kilograms of raw materials,” claims Back Market.
Take apart a regular iPhone and inside you’ll find about 0.034g of high-quality gold (equivalent to a value of $2.10), 0.34g of silver, 0.015g of palladium, and a microscopic amount of platinum.
Thus, according to Back Market’s calculations, 1 ton of recycled iPhone can yield about 300 times more gold than mining a ton of gold ore. With the same amount, one can get 6.5 times more silver (also compared to 1 ton of silver ore). Gold is used to coat the electronic circuitry of the phone, while silver is found in the many different metal elements that make up the device.
Meanwhile, a million mobile phones can provide nearly 16 tons of copper wire, 15kg of palladium (used in the electrical circuit of the device). And yet, a smarphone can contain elements – which are abundant in the Earth’s crust but are difficult to mine – such as yttrium, lanthanum, terbium, neoddium, gadolinium and praseodymium. Not to mention materials such as plastic, glass or batteries.. Yttrium and gadolinium are used in the display; neodymium and praseodymium in speakers and headphones; and lanthanum are involved in making the small lens in the camera sharper.
Many of these materials can be found in China, which accounts for 42 percent of annual iPhone production worldwide.
Smartphones and laptops are identified as two of the main sources of electronic waste today. About 1.2 million tonnes of equipment in these two categories is produced each year in the UK, enough to fill six Wembley stadiums.
Previously, in March 2022, the Royal Mint – the UK’s national mint company announced plans to build the world’s first factory specializing in recovering gold separated from electronic boards. The company expects to process 90 tons of circuits per week, earning hundreds of kilograms of gold a year.
at Blogtuan.info – Source: cafebiz.vn – Read the original article here
