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Gold from phones

11.04.2009

According to statisticians, in the world every year more than half a billion cell phones are replaced by new models. Many stores take old phones and send them in for refurbishment or recycling.

A large American firm that accepts and recycles old phones is located in the town of Dexter. More than 500 phones are sorted and evaluated here every month. If the device is well preserved (there are about 60% of such devices), it is modernized by changing the battery and worn out parts, sometimes by updating the program in memory, and is again sent for sale at a reduced price. The device can withstand up to three updates.

Hopelessly damaged phones are sent for recycling, which is about 15 tons per month. First, the devices are passed through a crusher, plastic fragments are sifted from the resulting mass, the rest is sent to a melting furnace. Metal ingots and slag come out of it.

The slag is used for the production of tiles and road surfaces, and the alloy is taken to a refinery to extract precious metals. A ton of old phones contains 2268 grams of silver. 227 grams of gold and 28 grams of palladium.

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