Gold Bricks In Old Mobile Phones

Do you want to throw away your old cell phone?

Please think twice. Maybe you are throwing away a small gold mine.

There are precious metals such as gold, silver, copper and iridium in the parts of the mobile phone.

With the surging global metal prices, the recovery of precious metals from discarded mobile phones and other electronic products has become a booming business in some Asian countries - "urban mining industry".

A country in Asia has developed its electronics industry and needs a lot of precious metals and small metals. However, a country in Asia is extremely short of natural resources. Therefore, the recovery of electronic products to extract useful metals has become an important means to compensate for the shortage of natural resources in some Asian countries.

After recycling the waste electronic products, some materials are reused in the manufacture of new electronic products, and precious metals such as gold are melted and sold into jewellery, investors and electronic products manufacturers.

The manufacturers of electronic products use gold for mobile phone circuit boards because they are better than copper in conducting electricity.

Over the past two years, international metal prices have been rising.

In March this year, international gold prices reached a record high of 1030.8 US dollars per ounce.

The current international gold price is stable at $890 an ounce.

The prices of copper and tin are near the highest in history, while silver prices are higher than the historical average.

According to the research of Pioneer Metals Corporation in Yokohama, a large recycling company in Asia, the average 1 tons of gold ore extracted from gold mines can only produce 5 grams of gold, while a ton of discarded mobile phones can produce more than 150 grams of gold.

In addition, 1 tons of old mobile phones can also produce about 100 kilograms of copper, 3 kilograms of silver and other metals.

The "ecosystem" recycling company was established 20 years ago. Now it can produce 200 kilograms to 300 kilograms of gold bullion with a purity of 99.99%, which is worth 5 million 900 thousand US dollars to 8 million 800 thousand US per month.

Such production is almost the same as that of a small gold mine.

In addition to used mobile phones, the ecosystem recycling company also recovered metals from old storage bars, cables, and even black and silver containing silver and palladium.

There is a large demand for abandoned mobile phones. The Asian country has 128 million people. The average life span of a cell phone in the country is two years and eight months.

In a country in Asia, although people pay more and more attention to environmental protection and waste recycling, recycling still needs a lot of old mobile phones.

Data show that although a large number of cell phones are discarded every year, only 10% to 20% of the old cell phones are recycled.

Because there are many personal information on mobile phones, people are used to keeping old phones at home instead of sending them to recycling organizations.

From March 2006 to March 2007, a country in Asia only recovered 558 tons of old mobile phones, and its recovery was 1/3 lower than 3 years ago.

With the rise of metal prices, a scrap metal recycling industry in Asia has felt tremendous competitive pressure.

Now, in addition to recycling old phones in the country, some Asian companies also import old circuit boards from Singapore and Indonesia.