How E-Waste Became a Goldmine for Urban Miners

If you’ve ever thrown away an old phone, a damaged laptop or a non-functioning TV remote, you’ve contributed to the growing mountain of e-waste. But here is something that most of us are not aware of – all that electronic rubbish is full of precious metals. Gold, silver, platinum and palladium lie nestled inside circuit boards, connectors and wires. In recent years, many people have begun to treat this electronic waste not as trash, but as a valuable resource. A veritable gold mine, quite literally.

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Welcome to the world of urban mining e-waste, where yesterday’s technology becomes re-purposed treasures.

A Ton of Trash, A Handful of Gold

According to the United Nations, one metric ton of e-waste from obsolete electronics can contain as much as 800 times more gold than an optimum ton of mined ore. You read that correctly. Instead of blasting mountains or drilling deep shafts into the ground, we can collect more gold just by taking off the shell of an old desktop or smartphone.

And there is a lot of e-waste to be found. In 2022 alone, we produced over 62 million metric tons of e-waste globally, and that number is increasing every year. Less than 20% of that gets formally recycled. That’s millions of tons of electronics waste, and billions of dollars worth of precious metals in e – waste that gets burned, buried, or forgotten.

What are Urban Mines?

Urban mining is the recovery of valuable metals and materials from the material we discard in cities, e-waste from old electronics, batteries and appliances, as well as building materials. Urban mining e-waste is about the extraction of metals from our old electronic gadgets.

You can think of it similarly to traditional mining – but you use screwdrivers and shredders instead of pick-axes and dynamite, acid baths and sorting machines instead of digging in the ground, and rather than digging below a mountain, you dig through the supply chains of old electronics.

The urban mining process can be cleaner, cheaper, and quicker than traditional mining, and it has a far smaller environmental impact if managed responsibly.

Why is Gold in Electronics?

You might be surprised to learn, but gold is essential to the operation of many electronics that work dependably. That is because gold is one of the best conductors of both electricity and heat. It doesn’t tarnish or corrode like other metals, which means it remains stable over time. This is an important characteristic for small, sensitive components in high-performance devices. This is why you find gold in all electronic devices in components like SIM cards, memory chips, microprocessors, and motherboards.

In the devices you use every day – like smartphones, tablets, and computers, there are small traces of gold on the connectors and wiring. Each individual amount is small, usually a fraction of a gram per device, but when billions of devices are produced, used, and discarded, the amount of precious metals in electronic waste adds up.

The Global E-waste Monitor states that close to $57 billion worth of raw materials, mostly precious metals like gold, silver, and copper, go to waste in electronic waste (e-waste) each year. That number is higher than the GDP for some countries.

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Recycling gold from electronics, even a small fraction could be not only highly lucrative but also help alleviate the environmental impact of traditional mining.  Rather than tearing into the land to excavate ore, we could instead be mining the landfills, drawers and scrap piles through sustainable urban mining of precious metals.

E waste computer recycling is poised to serve as a pillar of 21st-century resource recovery, and as society spends more on technology, not only will the amount of electronic waste gold recovery increase, but also the potential resource value increase each year.

Introducing Urban Miners

People around the world are tapping into this hidden treasure as urban miners.

Japan was one of the first exemplars of urban mining when, before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, they started a national campaign and asked citizens to turn in their old electronics. They requested and received over 6 million phones and other electronic devices. Sifting through those discarded devices, they were able to recover enough recycled gold, silver, and bronze to create all 5,000 Olympic medals.

In India, workers have been engaging in e waste computer recycling for ages, often in difficult and unsafe conditions. More recently, formalized recycling approaches are rapidly expanding. Using state of the art technology, Attero Recycling based in Noida is extracting electronics waste gold recovery at an industrial scale while reducing pollution and making money.

In Switzerland, the e-waste recycling system is one of the best in the world. It is estimated that roughly 95% of the electronic waste is collected correctly and processed. And this isn’t only gold; copper, aluminum, and even plastics are recovered. The Process: How Gold is Extracted from Wastes

Here’s a brief overview of e-waste recovery of metals:

Collection and Sorting

Devices are collected, sorted, and dismantled. Circuit boards, cables, and batteries are separated to process these components differently.

Shredding

THen, once everything is sorted, it is shredded to small pieces to make recovery easier.

Separation

Magnetic separators collect steel. Eddy current separators collect aluminum. Plastics can be filtered out. Everything left is made up of metals.

Chemical Processing

This is where the recovery of gold from electronic waste begins in earnest. The recovery of both gold and other metals is achieved through either chemical leaching, electrolysis, or a pyro metallurgical process.

Purification and Refinement

The gold recovered is purified, regularly to a 99.99% purity, and can then be reused in new electronics or sold as bullion.

A Two-for-One: Financial and Environmental Benefits

Why is this important? Because sustainable urban mining of precious metals is a solution to two large issues.

First, minimizing the need for traditional mining, which can be resource-heavy, dangerous, and can create a ton of damage, has value. For instance, creating one gold ring with mined gold can generate 20 tons of toxic waste. Second, we lessen the mountains of e waste accumulating in landfills or being burned in open air. Both of these options release dangerous chemicals and heavy metals into the air, water and soil. Recycling and recycling gold from electronics keeps toxic materials from the environment and precious materials in circulation.

What is Holding Urban Mining Back?

Despite its advantages urban mining e-waste is not developing as quickly as it should be. There are a few reasons why:

Lack of awareness: Most people are unaware their old phone may be worth something.

Poor collection systems: In many places, there is no reasonable option to properly dispose of e-waste. In many developing countries, e waste computer recycling often occurs informally using hazardous techniques like open burning or acid baths, which can harm the environment and workers.

Regulatory loopholes: Countries may ship their e waste abroad to avoid dealing with it, which raises environmental justice concerns and risks.

What Can You Do?

If the above is making you reconsider the old gadgets in your drawers, here are a few small actions you can take:

• Don’t throw electronics in the garbage. Instead, check out certified e-waste recycling centers near you.
• Donate or sell electronics that still work to someone who needs it.
• Buy less and buy better, select electronics that last longer or are easy to repair.
• Support responsible recyclers. Some companies will state how they will handle the electronics and where the materials are disposed of.

Your phone may be old to you, but to someone else, it’s still filled with gold – literally. Treat it like it matters.

While things look promising in terms of urban mining e-waste, there is still work to be done. As demand for electronics increases, the pressure on the planet and limited natural resources are significant. Traditional mining to extract metals is damaging to both the planet and communities, and isolates the resources from the very people who made them.  E waste recycling can and should provide a better solution.

Many governments are creating stronger systems for e waste computer recycling to recover precious metals in e-waste instead of letting them become waste. At the same time, new and safer methods of electronic waste gold recovery are being developed.

However, more awareness and education remains the largest hurdle. The majority of people do not know that their older phones or laptops are valuable. In the years ahead, we can expect a sustainable urban mining of precious metals to cross over from being a niche industry to mainstream. This isn’t science fiction. It’s a logical, first-order reaction to a real challenge and it begins with the technology we already have.

Because when we stop fetishizing (or worse, ignoring) e waste as garbage, and start fetishizing it as gold, who knows where we can go. Now that’s the future we should be mining for.

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