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

[Marghanita da Cruz]

The recycling vs mining is an interesting argument and 
perhaps explains why Australia is having such difficulty 
with e-waste.

> In November 2009, Australian Governments agreed to develop a national policy for waste management to meet Australia's obligations on hazardous wastes, address market impediments and streamline a co-regulatory framework.11. In practice, the management of domestic E-waste is falling on local councils and businesses have to dispose of their own e-waste.
<http://ramin.com.au/itgovernance/green-ICT-governance-imperatives.shtml>

Marghanita

Craig Sanders wrote:
> 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
> 


-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://ramin.com.au
Tel: 0414-869202