Many necklace, ring, watch and bracelet companies start to explore the inside of technological devices. extracting gold and silver to manufacture their products.
It’s not just them. The world is slowly and gradually starting to open its eyes to a serious problem that will only increase: electronic waste. About 50 million tons are thrown away each year.. To understand the size, a United Nations report clarifies that this weight is greater than “any commercial airplane ever built” or “enough of the Eiffel Tower to cover the entire island of Manhattan, which is 87.5”. square kilometer long.
The forecasts are alarming: According to the Global E-Waste Monitoring report, 74 million tons of this type of waste will be produced in 2030. The rest end up in landfills, where they break down and release toxins that pollute the air, soil and groundwater. The United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is clear in pointing out that “they pose significant risks to the environment and health”.
Currently, only 20 percent of this waste is recycled. Goals expand this figure will reach 30 percent in the coming months and half of the countries have legislation in this regard.
Gold, silver, palladium, platinum, rhodium, lead, nickel and copper They are some of the metals stored in the bowels of electronic devices. Some may be harmful to human health and the environment; others, very lucrative.
“Electronic companies spend a fortune buying and processing precious minerals, but find that they end up in landfills,” says the World Economic Forum.
The key lies in the right treatment, which reintegrates many of them into the economy.: an application of the so-called economy
circular. Recycling stimulates the economy, creates jobs and helps conserve resources.
According to ITU, they can generate opportunities if they are subjected to a correct recycling system. creates more than $62,500 million a year and thousands of new jobs decent in the world.
On the contrary, a bad treatment leads to disastrous consequences. Primitive and inexperienced processes (through the burning or use of inappropriate acids) release dangerous toxins that affect the individuals who perform them (many of them work in the informal economy), their communities, and nature. They also reduce quality and quantity and resources extracted.
While the material properly recovered from an electronic device is scarce, the sum of the small portions is worth it. For example, scrap gold from electronic devices is estimated to be equivalent to 11 percent of the total mined annually.
Although technologies to recover these wastes exist and have been around for some time, they are still expensive and inefficient. Therefore, new companies face the problem from different angles. E-waste refiners seek new ways to work, scientists study in monotube nano technology for filters and mineral recovery processes sound waves underwater.
Expanding these systems reduces costs. According to WorldLoop, an international nonprofit organization, “recycling and mining metals is moving from a burden to a new profit opportunity”. And he predicts that in the near future, “rather than putting our old phones in a drawer or worse, throwing them away, we’ll be able to throw them in a recycling bin every week so they can be neatly collected.”
Currently some companieslike apple and samsung— in certain locations they give cash or coupons to customers in exchange for their old devices.
But not only companies committed to new technologies benefit from recycling electronic materials. Others, as classic as jewellery, do just that.
Companies Lylie, Nowa, Au Terra and recently Pandora are making serious progress on this path.
For example, Au Terra manually corrupts devices in search of gold and other useful materials. It separates, crushes and exposes components to high temperatures. In this way, a mixed metallic mass and another slag are produced, which are used in other fields such as construction.
Lylie also extracts valuable materials in the UK. “There is 0.2 grams of gold in a mobile phone.”, he explains, and is used less than two years on average. “Mining and refining results in a lower carbon footprint than primary mined gold,” he reports. In addition, 30 grams of a ton of minerals are extracted from the soil, while “about 300 grams of this substance is obtained from one ton of electronic waste.”
Recycling these metals will of course reduce mining which has a significant impact on the environment. According to Au Terra, you only need to move around five tons of soil to get ten grams of gold. This destroys habitats, forces wildlife to move, vegetation is lost and deforestation occurs. and disturbs the ground.
Pandora, one of the world’s largest manufacturers, has already announced that all its jewelry will be made from recycled gold and silver by 2025, although it recognizes that recycling is complex and expensive.Cell phones go from being used to communicate to providing us with earrings, necklaces and bracelets. An unexpected round trip.
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Source: Exame
