If your smartphone has become old then never make the mistake of throwing it away considering it as junk. Not only the data stored in old phones is valuable, but many precious metals are also present in the phone. Some of these metals are such that you will have to spend a huge amount to buy them. There are some which take a lot of hard work to extract from the mines. In this way your old phone is not junk but a small packet of precious metals.
What happens in a smartphone?
Smartphone is not just a device made of plastic and glass. According to a report, an iPhone contains 0.034 grams of gold, 0.015 grams of palladium and a very small amount of platinum. Apart from this, there is also about 25 grams of aluminum and 15 grams of copper. One tonne of iPhone produces 300 times more gold than one tonne of gold ore and 6.5 times more silver than one tonne of silver ore. Apart from this, iPhone also contains many rare earth materials including lanthanum, terbium, neodymium, gadolinium and praseodymium, whose mining is very difficult.
34 kg gold can be extracted from this many iPhones
If you want to remove these precious metals from your old iPhone or other smartphone, then you need to stop and think. The quantity of these metals in one unit is very less. However, if you look at it on a larger scale, about 34 kg of gold, 16 tons of copper, 350 kg of silver and 15 kg of palladium can be extracted from one million iPhones.
Concern about e-waste from old phones
Almost every year 2 billion people around the world upgrade their phones. This means that approximately the same number of phones are either stored in a cupboard or thrown away and forgotten. Only about 10 percent of these phones are such that they can be recycled. In such a situation, concern is also raised about the e-waste generated from these phones.
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