[LINK] recycling 100 million cell phones yields 7, 500 pounds of gold

[Craig Sanders]

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 05:36:50PM +1000, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
> >     * By recycling 100 million cell phones, approximately 7,500
> >     pounds of gold could be recovered - allowing that amount of
> >     gold to go into new products.1 Recovering the gold from cell
> >     phones, rather than mining it from the earth, would prevent
> >     12,000,000,000 pounds of loose soil, sand, and rock from having
> >     to be moved, mined, and processed.2
> <http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/partnerships/plugin/reuse.htm>

yes, that's nice - but what's the actual cost of recovering the gold etc
from 100M mobile phones?

how much energy is used, how much pollution is generated, what toxic
chemicals are used in the process, what materials/residues are left, and
how are they disposed of?

and what are the costs involved in collecting and transporting all the
phones?

and how does all that compare to mining new gold?


a comparison would probably come out in favour of recycling (mining is
an extraordinarily dirty business - in every sense of the word), but
it's not something that can just be assumed or, worse, ignored with the
belief that the various processes involved in recycling are somehow
"free".

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>